Happy Bloomsday!

Even as an English major for whom reading the Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man was an intellectual bright spot(in my freshman year English comp class), I can't claim to have read Ulysses, but love hearing about Bloomsday and have celebrated it occasionally with a Guinness over the years.

On the knitting front, I've blocked my Sprössling but haven't gotten around to piecing it together. I planned to not cast anything on until I had finished it, but couldn't help myself when I got the yarn from Fiber Frolic wound into balls using my friend's large ball-winder. I dubbed the ball-winder the "Big Mama" when I handed it back to her last night at choir. I really struggled with the String Theory Caper Lace on my regular-sized ball-winder. 575 yards was just a bit too much and I kept tangling it underneath the cone. The Jewel sock yarn from Mocha's Fiber came in an 1100 yard skein! I absolutely could not have wound it on my own winder.

Anyway, the Jewel yarn, a 65% superwash merino and 35% rayon of bamboo mix won me over. It is in the Aegean colorway, a lovely mix of sea blue/green colors and so soft! I'm making the Bitterroot Shawl from Knitty winter '09 and have beads already purchased for the edging. This is one of those yarns that feel wonderful to knit -- I can hardly put the project down and already know I'll be sorry to finish it. But, the 1100 yards will probably give me two projects -- one shawl and another shawlette/scarf, so I'll enjoy every minute. Here's a progress photo:
But, the sun is shining today and my usual Thursday yoga class will be followed by a graduation party tonight, so I probably won't get much time to fondle my yarn until Friday. We're having dinner with family - even my brother from Maryland will be there - to celebrate Father's Day and my parents' anniversary a couple of days early. I'll get to knit in the car on the way to dinner (over an hour away)!