The boy is fine. After a little rest he feels so much better. He can't raise the arm 100%, but he can lean on it and is having no trouble holding books. Also, there is no swelling or bruising, so I think he's just strained it. We're going to keep an eye on it for tonight. Yay! To celebrate we're having Chinese and I'm going to make a pan of brownies.

We got a lot of snow early this morning, which is usually nice for the kids. Unless, of course, the kids are fooling around at recess, slip and fall and the school calls to tell you your kid ended up at the bottom of the pile. Jeremy drove over there to pick up Alex who was soaking wet and unable to move his left arm. He's hurt pretty bad, somewhere between the shoulder and elbow of his left arm. He came home and changed (with some help) and now he's lying in bed, having a rest. I gave him some Advil and told him that when he gets up we'll go over to the hospital for some x-rays to make sure it isn't broken.

Alex says it only hurts if he tries to move his arm or use any pressure, and then the pain is sharp and severe. This leads me to think that he's probably got a fracture of some sort. I hope not! It's in such an awkward location. Whatever it is, we'll figure it out this afternoon. He's in good spirits and doesn't feel too badly right now so I'm not overly worried. What's childhood without a broken bone or two, right?

This hat is for a friend of a friend...Caren will be facing chemotherapy in February and hopefully she can get even a teeny amount of comfort from this cap. I don't know Caren personally so I don't know if she's a crocheted flower kind of girl, but just in case she is I made a little band she can add to the cap to dress it up a bit (the band is not attached). The pattern is Shedir from Knitty. I used the recommended yarn (Rowan Calmer) and knit the whole thing using two 3mm circular needles. Surprisingly it was a really quick knit; I started it Friday night and finished it last night.

All it needs is a bit of blocking and then it'll be on its way to Susie in New Jersey, who will pass it on to her friend. Good luck, Caren! Our thoughts are with you.

My first nice skein of handspun yarn was meant to be sock yarn, but it turned out to be a little bit too heavy and I didn't have enough for two socks. So I started knitting mittens with it instead. My second attempt worked out much better.

Here I'm in the middle of plying my second batch of superwash merino from Crown Mountain Farms. I love it and I'm going to order some more. For the first batch I spun and plied 100g and just in case I don't have enough to knit both socks, I decided to spin up another 50g.

This is how I ply. Rochelle gave me a huge Louet spindle that I use for plying, mainly because it's so big it can accomodate as much as 100g before the cop falls apart on me. I wind my singles onto a toilet paper roll that I shove onto my ball winder. I flip my shoebox upside down and stick the spindle in a hole I've made for support. Then I use my left hand to both hold the spindle up and provide a bit of tension so the singles wind onto the toilet roll smoothly. I pop the roll off my ball winder, shove a knitting needle through it and suspend it in the shoebox. I do this with two rolls, and then I ply from that.

I've just finished the gusset decreases on my first sock. I'm really thrilled with it! The yarn is somewhere in between a fingering and a dk weight. The sock is 60 stitches around (I usually use 64 when I knit with fingering) and it's knit on 2.5mm needles.

That's not all the spinning I've done. Rochelle came over on the weekend and brought her wheel with her. I spun and plied this teeny bit of corriedale, and I'm really pleased with myself although the yarn itself is horrid and unusable. There is just so much to keep track of on a wheel! Even though it was difficult and I felt like I had no control over what I was producing, I had a blast and it's just a matter of time until I am able to consistently draft and achieve the correct amount of twist like I do with a spindle. I hate wishing the time away, but I can't help but want to jump to July when my Lendrum will finally come in.

Cuba, my eldest yet littlest cat is 3 years old now. Such a grown up lady!