Thursday was fun and jam-packed, as predicted. (The only surprise was that I didn’t feel like driving to the east side to buy dinner, so I bought groceries and cooked a broccoli stir-fry instead.)

The CityKidz sure had a fun time making yarn again Thursday. I ended up with two batches of kids, but in one pot. This was predictable, as I start at 3:30 on Thursdays, which is really early for kids who get out of school no earlier than 3pm, and walk to the center.

I added the second group’s yarn on top of the yarn already in my roaster pan (the pan was huge and the yarn barely touched capacity). By the time we added the second batch, a lot of the color was already absorbed by the first yarns so I added more color on top of the first batch. It turned out great. You may be able to tell in the photos that a few kids have lighter yarn skeins, and that is why.

Of course, after the yarn was done, they started wearing their still-damp yarn around their necks. As other kids in the building saw this, they kept wandering in asking if they could join in. Unfortunately, at that point it was too late. I’m glad it was such a hit, though. I got a few boys I don’t see often, and I love any sort of bait to bring them in. I was happy with the results of this week’s special event!

Friends. Well, what can I say other than I’m very lucky. I have such high-quality people in my life right now, people who see the real me and like the whole package, who don’t criticize my weak spots, who make me feel special. Ulyana is one of those people, and I got to see her for maybe only the second time since I got back from Africa. She gave me an excellent massage and I gave her this pair of socks. Trust me, there really is a mate for this sock. It is my pair number 111 (the strawberry baby footies were 110), which makes 6 pair this year. Nevermind one pair was tiny, tiny, tiny… and this last pair was actually mostly done before I went to Africa.

The socks are top-down with rolled stockinette cuff, and afterthought heel. All I had to do on these when I got back from my trip, was to reknit the heels. I had made them far too pointy and so I ripped back much of the heels and reshaped them more rounded and not as long. They turned out very well, and Ulyana loved them.

More about friends: April was holding Sally’s baby at dance rehearsal Wednesday night when I got a great shot of them. Isn’t April pretty? I took other photos at rehearsal, but moving targets are hard to get framed well and the shots were disappointing. This shot makes it worthwhile.

My knitting: I just had to take a break from the flashy synthetic yarns for a while. The yarns I picked for Garden Capelet (that’s an official name now, I was calling it Prom Wrap, Glitzy/Dressy Wrap, whatever seemed right at the moment), well those yarns are beautiful and they somehow are not fun to knit right now.

I don’t know if it’s just time for me to knit wool again or if it’s really these yarns. They are beautiful, I just am not enjoying the knitting. Part of it is that I have to look at the knitting every stitch, and I’m used to knitting and reading my emails and other folks’ blogs, which I just can not do with this project. Another part of it, I think, is that it has a regular repeat. I prefer knitting randomly. I do like how the fabric of the capelet is turning out, but I needed some relief.

The good thing was that I had a Watercolor Bag class Thursday night. It was just me and Irene A. (how lucky am I, we had the nicest chat while we knit away). That gave me some time to actually cast on and do a whole row during class, something that rarely happens for me. I came home and went to town! I really think I missed wool. After all, a big reason I knit is because I love wool (OK, and alpaca and mohair) so much. I love the look of the curly eyelash I’m using right now, but it just doesn’t feel as nice flowing through my fingers as the wool can. Trust me, once it’s finished I will adore wearing it on stage. I wish it would be done by Sunday’s concert but now there is nearly no way to make that happen.

So I am now over halfway through the first of 3 skeins of Kureyon for a watercolor bag. For me. Me me me me!!! I can be a 3-year old pretty easily, can’t I??? I do highly recommend selfish knitting, I have always felt that nobody can really love what you make quite as much as you do. If you knit gifts, you need to totally love giving it away, and I do some of that as well.

However, my recent boom of success in the teaching realm, for which I am very grateful, has made it so I can’t do much selfish knitting. And I just gave in to the temptation last night. I had an excuse, because I was teaching a class about this anyway. And that yarn has been sitting for at least a month begging me to touch it. So now I have. Woohoo! How freeing this can be.

I’m trying to do at least 4 rows each morning and 4 rows each evening on the current Garden Capelet so I will have another sample done, but just for yesterday I skipped that and knit wool all day. I love it. I’ll be back on the 4-row-or-more plan again for Friday, but for about 24 hours I took a wool vacation and enjoyed it fully.

Photos: 1) CityKidz dyers, day Two; 2) Sock #111 for Ulyana; 3) April with Sally’s Baby; 4) Current fabric on needles for second Garden Capelet sample; 5) Beginnings of my own (I hope) Watercolor Bag.