Several people mentioned, after reading my notes about books yesterday, what people think of you based on your books. I hadn't really thought about that (although I would put any steamy romance novels out of the public eye, for sure -- I remember how shocked I was to discover that one of my profs in college read romance novels, and how fast I told everyone in the department). But then I remembered that our houseguests had looked all over the living room bookshelves while I was making tea, and decided to look and see what conclusions they might have drawn about me and my family.

I can't imagine. Music, history, science, novels, craft books, more novels, religion and philosophy, and more novels. Photo albums, gardening books, a few assorted dictionaries. Kids' books. Half a dozen books about planning a wedding. So... a musician/ craftsperson with an interest in the humanities, who has been involved in a wedding in the not-too-distant past, has kids, and reads a lot of novels. Yeah, that's pretty close.

But that may not be what they thought at all. They might have thought I was a terribly light-minded person, a dilettante with more mystery novels than classics, and no political science whatsoever. Not a single word by Pablo Neruda, no spy novels, and an unreasonable number of craft books. Multiple copies of knitting books? What's with her?

Actually, I am doing the armscye shaping on Hopkins now, an undertaking which requires immediate access to numerous books. My bold anti-agoraphobia program has caused me to have three appointments this week before work, as well as my three evenings out. Clearly, I am not getting to the gym much this week (although the Poster Queen pointed out that the gym in question is open twenty-four hours a day, so there is nothing to stop me from going at, say, 5:00 am, and getting back in time to make the boys' breakfast. The Poster Queen says bracing things like this.) I will have a bit of extra knitting time in waiting rooms, though. I expect to get the back completed before Easter at this rate. I am therefore continuing to approach the question of sleeve shaping in an orderly and scientific fashion.

The Knitty article on calculating sleeve caps said you just have to use a little trigonometry. Who are they kidding? There is no such thing as a little trigonometry. Either you have taken a course in it, or you don't know quite what the word means. No one decides to dip into trigonometry a little bit, to read a couple of articles on the subject over lunch, or to have a cocktail-party acquaintanceship with the topic.

Abandoning the Knitty article, I turn to The Big Book of Knitting. It shows a clear schematic of a set-in sleeve, and says that the stitches are bound off in a rounded shape, with the last 2 3/4" bound of straight across. Okay, I can handle that. The it says, "the rounded part ... should be at least 2" less than the armhole length on the front and back." Unable to turn this into English, I pick up Knitting By Design. Thank goodness I store my books vertically.

This book has charts. Armed with the chart, I measure the front of Hopkins from the first bind-off for the armscye to the shoulder. It is 10", which is already larger than the book recommends. Never mind. The chart tells me that my sleeve cap should be 7" long. I calculate the proper length of the sleeve from wrist to armscye and find that it is 17". I measure Siv's sleeve to that point and find that it is -- 17". So I can follow the sleeve pattern confidently to that point. I measure the height of the sleeve cap, which should be 7", and find that it is -- 9". And it was longer than that before. No wonder I did not like it.

So I must calculate how to get all the necessary decreases into 7", when the pattern has it figured for about 10". I could figure from my gauge -- or by directly measuring -- how many stitches will make 2 3/4 ". Then, judging from the width of the sleeve... Oh, my goodness. Maybe trigonometry would be better. Or a dropped sleeve. What's wrong with a dropped sleeve, after all? Possibly the fact that I have already made the front and much of the back of a sweater that calls for a set-in sleeve.

Pull out Mary Thomas's Knitting Book. She says that the width of the sleeve at the beginning of the sleeve cap should be the size of the armhole minus 1" -- presumably, in this case, 19". That seems rather large, but I trust Mary. She recommends measuring this out on paper -- the width of the sleeve cap and the height of the sleeve cap have been figured and can be drawn in, and now you draw a nice freehand curve for the shape of the sleeve cap. Cut it out, and use it to block your sweater.

Okay. I have 7" to get from 19" (the width of the sleeve at the beginning of the sleeve cap) to 2 3/4". I will bind off an inch at either end right away, making it 17". So I merely have to subtract 2 3/4 from 17, getting 14 1/4, and then divide that by 7. I see that this is going to be a number slightly larger than 2. Let's just call it 2. I'm getting about 4 rows to the inch, so I will have to get half an inch decreased on every row. That looks like a decrease at each end of each row will be required -- about twice as fast a rate as the original Siv pattern calls for. Granted that there are too many numbers in this paragraph, I still think it will work. A little graph paper may be in order.

I'm sure your eyes have already slid off to some other, more interesting blog. However, I am going to keep this to come back to when it is time to shape the sleeves. Have I proven that it is essential to have lots of knitting books? Or that someone still needs to write a more perfect knitting book? Or only that I am too dense to be able to grasp things the first time they are presented to me, and have to have them phrased in lots of different ways before I can understand them? No matter. I was able to find all these books, regardless of color or size, pull them out, and put them tidily away when I finished, without even having to leave the computer. I consider that this proves the superiority of my book-arranging system over that of Southern Living. They will not be coming over to photograph my living room any time soon, either.

Perusing the current issue of Southern Living, I could see that they were still sound on questions of barbecue and forsythia, cooling drinks, and baking with lemon. But on the subject of the arranging of books, they have clearly lost their minds.

First, they suggest that you arrange your books not in the dull vertical fashion, but with some of them in horizontal stacks, for interest. It may be interesting, but how are you supposed to read the ones on the bottoms of the stacks? You have to unstack the entire stack every time you want to pull one out! They also want you to put art objects on top of the stacks. So you not only have to unstack the books, but also to find a resting spot for a the bibelots every time.

Then they recommend shelving the books according to color and size. I can see doing this within author and subject categories, but a strict adherence to the rule will put The Beatrix Potter Knitting Book with 50 Selected Songs by Schubert and Wedding Keepsakes. August Folly will have The Music Dictionary and Bunnicula Strikes Again as shelf-mates. How will you ever find a book? I don't know what they are thinking.

Actually, I do know what they are thinking. They are thinking that you never read your books, or if you do, you will be idly browsing among them for something to read, not trying to put your hand on a particular book. They are wrong.

I was at Partygirl's having a mimosa yesterday, and there were at least four occasions during our conversation when one or the other of us picked up one of her books. She wanted to read me a passage that had particularly impressed her, my eye was caught by the title of one of the volumes on her sofa table, we wanted to check a quotation.

Our houseguests noticed Rhinos who Skateboard on the shelf and had to read the whole series, plus of course checking out the sheet music collection.

In daily life, I often turn to a book to check a stitch pattern or planting distances for a vegetable. The boys need to look up information for school or a game. Even when you remember a particularly amusing scene in a novel, it is natural to grab the book and savor it again This is what books are for.

So here are my tips for arranging your books.

* Put them in some kind of logical order that will enable you to find them when you want them. If you have books which you never look into, you could stack them and set some objets d'art on top, but you might be better off trading them in at the used book store for something you will want to read.

* It is okay to put the most attractive books in the most public rooms, and even to hide any self-help books,  bodice-rippers, or other embarrassing titles in another room. However, bear in mind that if you have only classics on all public shelves, it will look as though you have never read anything that wasn't assigned.

* If you have plenty of space on your bookshelves for collectibles, go right out and buy more books.

I think that covers it. For details on forsythia, check out Southern Living.

Dweezy encouraged me to pick up the phone and make a hair appt. or even pop into a salon as a walk-in, and I actually did.

My hairdresser's name is Cecilia. I never tell you people's real names, but her name is really Cecilia. If you were motivated and clever enough to figure out who she is, then this would just be good marketing for her. At the point at which I realized that I was too old for long hair, I asked one of my more glamorous-looking customers to recommend someone who could cut my hair well without my being able to help much. Cecilia was an excellent choice, because she is not overly influenced by her clients. She says, "I aim to please, but you have to look good."

When #2 daughter wanted a French twist for prom, Cecilia asked about her dress and said, "I think we'll do something Irish." #2 daughter, being an exotic Eurasian girl, looked a little dubious, but Cecilia was right. And when said daughter decided to have her hair cut all to about 2" except for long swoops in the front, Cecilia did her a sort of Josephine Baker bob instead, and she was right that time too.

As for me, I never go in with a plan. I just make it clear that I cannot be expected to do anything with my hair besides washing it, and put myself in Cecilia's hands.

So I called for an appointment, for myself and #1 son. It took longer than it should have because I could not remember the name of the salon. Considering that I have not only been going there for years, but also pass by it every weekday between #2 son's school and the gym, I am impressed that my brain was capable of forgetting it. I took a deep breath and came up with the name of the place, looked up the number, and called.

Cecilia was surprised to hear from me. When I let six months go between appointments, she does sound surprised. I think she figures I have gone to some other stylist. "My family is looking kind of shaggy," I said. Sometimes four or five of us go at once and take up her whole morning, but my husband put his foot down and took #2 son to a barber last week. He couldn't see his grandparents looking like that. Poor kids. #1 son held out for Cecilia.

So next Saturday I will have a haircut. I also drove myself to class when Partygirl was out of town (usually, if she doesn't go, I don't go either), drove to the grocery in the dark, and answered my phone a number of times. I have been reading my anti-agoraphobia book in my agoraphobe's garden. See, back in the far corner? To the left of this photo is the garden, composed mostly of crape myrtle trees. Here is the view from the chair. It was raining at the time -- sometime last June, I think. Right now it isn't as lush as this, but there are still plenty of vertical elements.

This morning I am singing "He Was Despised" from Messiah at the Presbyterian church (last minute solo -- that's what comes of answering your phone) and then who-knows-what at the Methodist church. I think the music there tends to be rather extemporaneous. Then I clean and cook some more, pick up the houseguests, and go to their concert. And then another work week begins.

I finished cutting out the quilt pattern yesterday and ironed it onto the fabric, a process which is harder than it sounds. I was not successful in persuading either of the guys in the house at the time to help me, and was fairly snippy to them about that. I assume that the hard part is now over and the rest will be easier. If not, I can always retreat to Hopkins. I am about two inches short of the armscye shaping, so it will be Easter before I finish the back. It was 70 degrees here yesterday and the dogwoods are blooming, but it has snowed on the dogwoods before. #1 daughter had snow yesterday, as I worked in my rose garden. I may still have an opportunity to wear Hopkins this season.

LikeWowMom and CheriM posted photoblogs. Not their trips to work, but since they are SAHMs, that would be impractical. The daily round, or the homeschool experience, seem like good alternatives. I like seeing where people live. It adds a dimension to my mental images of you. Sometimes seeing a picture of a person you've developed a mental image of a can be a shock, though. I had always thought that Susan Stamberg of NPR was a large black woman given to wearing Chanel suits. When I ran into a picture of her (looking up her special cranberry relish recipe), I was startled. I thought Terry Gross was a Diane Sawyer type, too. Just goes to show you can't tell what a person looks like from her voice. Or, perhaps, from her blog.

It's a lovely day here. Too lovely for housework, which I must do anyway, but perfect for errands, visiting friends, and playing in the garden. And possibly sitting on the porch with a book and some knitting.

Now that I have committed to finishing Hopkins before I knit anything else, I am looking ahead just a little bit to when, with the front and back finished, I will do the sleeves. The first time I made Siv (the pattern I am using for Hopkins) I was dissatisfied with the sleeves. In fact, though I wear Siv fairly often and like it well, I am still dissatisfied with the sleeves. Obviously, I will have to make some changes when I make the sleeves for Hopkins. With any luck, if I contemplate these changes while I knit the back, I will have made some decisions by the time I get to the sleeves.

Ah, sleeves. First we visit Sleeve Island, knitting long dull things that have to be turned often, with lots of purling and decreasing to slow down our reading. Then, like as not, we have multiple trips to the Frog Pond in order to make the blamed things fit the armscyes. Then we complain on our blogs that the sleeves are too long, too short, too big, too small, or in some other way not really what we had in mind.

A map of Knitter World would be a strange thing, wouldn't it? I guess it would have to contain Australia in spite of the boycott, and New Zealand, Iceland, the Shetland Isles, Fair Isle, Jersey, Guernsey, Polperro, France, Italy, New England, Peru, Japan, New York City, and portions of Scandinavia. Then there would be Sleeve Island and myriad Frog Ponds. Blogs hither and yon. That would be about it.

In an effort to stay out of the Frog Pond and enjoy my stay on Sleeve Island, I decided to read Knitty's article on how to make sleeves fit. I read it when it first came out, sort of, except that I found that my eyes sort of slid off the page. There has since been a second installment. With this one, also, my eyes were inclined to slide.

This happens to me when there are lots of numbers and variables on a page. I read and review the new books for the store where I work (you're jealous, aren't you?) and I find that I have this problem with new algebra books. I end up saying things like how useful this book will be for those who need help with their rational numbers and equations, and that the word problems are unusually witty. I think I have even described the covers.

That Man doesn't quite believe this. He was doing a mailing and had included an entire paragraph full of phrases like "...normally sells for $2.99 a roll, or $365.83 per case, but between March 15 and April 23, we will be able to offer them to you for $321.14 per case, with ..." I pointed out that readers would have to hold the numbers in their minds while moving their eyes back to the beginning of the next line, and would doubtless find that their eyes simply slid off the page onto something more interesting. I pointed out that our average customer is not clear on the actual length of a yard of paper, and has to think several times before being able to say with certainty whether it was three feet or three yards that were wanted. The Empress hoped that those people were not the ones doing the purchasing for the districts, but she and That Man still went ahead and came up with a nice graph.

This was wise of them. I have nothing against math. I enjoy a good statistical analysis as much as the next woman. I have some favorite math books, and even own several excellent books about mathematics. (Let me know if you want a list. I am restraining myself here.) Nonetheless, I would recommend that, if you want to read those good articles about sleeves in Knitty, you arm yourself with a pencil and some graph paper. Then, when faced with "Subtract the body width from the wrist-to-wrist measurement. Divide the answer by two. That's your sleeve plus cuff length. Subtract the cuff depth to get the main sleeve length," you can draw the thing out to make it clearer.

You may not be like me, or our hapless paper-buyers. You may be like That Man and The Empress (an accountant and an economist by training). In that case, skip the paper and pencil and go immerse yourself in those Knitty articles, soaking up the measurements and enjoying a good mental workout. Also check out the references. I am fortunate enough to own one of the out-of-print books in the bibliography, Ida Riley Duncan's Knit to Fit. It contains formulae for calculating your sleeve perfectly. However, you will end up with a 1963 sleeve. Styles have changed since then, and our idea of a perfectly-fitting sleeve may also have done so.

In any case, these ruminations on sleeves will occupy me sufficiently while I clean, cook, and restock. Enjoy your weekend.

The No Child Left Untested Act -- excuse me, No Child Left Behind, or as one teacher/mother/grandmother said, The Our Children Left Out Act --  may be the worst thing that has ever happened to education. Testing has become the centerpiece of schooling, so much so that, as several teachers have said this week, "We don't teach any more, we just test." Social studies and science have been eliminated from many schools in favor of intensive bubble-filling, standards have been lowered to accommodate multiple-choice testing, actual learning is just a hoped-for by-product. "Assessment as instruction," a meaningless bit of gibberish, is the new catchphrase. Months of practice tests have led up to this mad week of all testing all day. The kindergarteners are falling asleep in the middle of the tests. Older students are bored, worried, or depressed, and generally hating school. As the week ends, we are seeing disheartened teachers and angry parents. And those are the ones who are still cheerful enough to come buy books. The majority are staying away.

It is amazing that something everyone agrees is a bad idea -- teachers, parents, and kids -- has become the norm. All I can think is that the decision-makers are so entirely ignorant of education and the schools that they literally do not know what they are doing. Keep this in mind next time you vote.

So a good rehearsal was just what I needed. And that is what we had. The Bach is coming along well. I even know the notes The Buck is very fun. Imagine if Gilbert and Sullivan had written for silent films. Last night we did the "Missionary Chant" (hymn)section for the first time, and you don't have to imagine Sullivan writing hymns, because of course he did. The same guy that wrote the music for "The Pirates of Penzance" wrote "Onward, Christian Soldiers," now expunged from most hymnals, but still a favorite with many of those old enough to remember it. People at the time felt that he was not a very sincere hymn-writer, but that may have been because of the irregularity of his personal life.

I know nothing about Buck's personal life, but it was his birthday last night, so we tried to sing his grand opus with, as Orgue suggested, "respect." I like the piece. I like Gilbert and Sullivan quite a lot, too. But I have to say that there are some parts of the Buck that are hard to sing without humor. The part where we sing "meanwhile" just like "meanwhile, back at the ranch" on a silent film card is almost impossible to sing without a little laughter.

And, after all, the Bach has an entire section on how we must be joyful and praise God  "with solemn glee," in a very heavy minor oom-pa-pa. So the levity occasioned by Buck's seriousness balances the somber tone of Bach's joy. We are working on the solemn glee. If we get it down pat, it might do for both works.

I love it that Chamber Singers is a community choir. We have a music student, but we also have a nanny, a math prof, a psychologist, a bartender, and a  librarian. Several bookstore folks, a couple more academics. And we can all enjoy spending time together making some good music.

The Methodist choir is also filled with community members enjoying time together. They eat together and then have Bible study and then gather for choir (I am at work through most of this, and just come in for the music). It is like hanging out with a big, cheerful family who sing together for fun without any concern over what it sounds like. They never stop talking, they kvetch and joke and carry on and rarely pay any attention to the choir leader. My daughters would hate it, I think, but for me it is a good contrast to the (relaxed) discipline of the Chamber Singers.

Did I say they would hate it? Maybe #2 daughter will enjoy it when she joins us on Maundy Thursday and Easter morning, sight-singing. I volunteered her. Mwah-ha-ha. I may not have spelled that last bit correctly. I see it on other xangas all the time, but haven't paid proper attention to the spelling.

Am I knitting at all? Yes, a little bit. This is Hopkins, using Wool-Ease sport weight on #4 needles. The basic pattern is Elsabeth Lavold's Siv, from Viking Patterns for Knitting. The color patterns on the front are from Alice Starmore's Celtic Collection. I am not showing you the front. This is the back. It is plain gray stockinette. That's why I don't show it to you very often. It is not interesting to look at. It is soft and lovely to knit, a pleasant accompaniment to reading, and will be a nice sweater. Not everything has to be exciting, right?

Tricofolk (who is making Erin, the sweater I plan to make after Hopkins) wrote about being sure to have plenty of yarn on hand in case the next ice age occurs without warning. While the likelihood of this happening seems small, you have to admire that level of preparation.

I usually only have enough yarn for current projects plus one, and I usually only have one or two projects going on, so I really don't have a yarn stash. I also read all my books, just in case you are secretly thinking "Oh yeah, she doesn't have a yarn stash, but how many books does that woman own? I know she has a linen closet full of 'em." I even re-read them, and refer to many of them on a regular basis. So there. But that wasn't what I was going to say.

I was going to say that preparation is a beautiful thing. I have houseguests expected again this weekend and I have unaccountably lost most of the week somewhere. I missed the Schwann's man, I have been cutting wee shapes out of an enormous piece of paper (the quilt pattern, that is), my mind is full of music for Holy Week (and pretty gruesome stuff some of it is, too), and I do not seem to have done any housework or arranged for food in any way. Elves have not appeared and done the laundry either. Nor have the errands on my list taken care of themselves. I am supposed to take a lesson to one friend and dinner to another, I had one rehearsal last night and have another tonight, and -- okay, enough whining. Whining will not help. Neither will blogging. Turning off the computer and doing some of the accumulated household tasks before going to work will help.

Here is a warning, right from the start. There is no knitting content here. You might want to just skip it and come back tomorrow.

I have learned more about agoraphobia, about which I first wrote a week ago today.

"Agoraphobia" is defined in the dictionary as "fear of open places," and that is true, but that is not how agoraphobia is diagnosed. A person who is only nervous about fields or phobic about a particular type of road has a specific phobia. Agoraphobia to the medical community is a complex, characterised primarily by avoidance.

Agoraphobics avoid a lot of things, mostly things associated with travel or specific spaces, food and drink, and social and business interactions. When I looked at the lists of stuff agoraphobes avoid, I was taken aback. These are not obviously related things. Making appointments, shopping for clothes, going places alone, driving on freeways, answering the phone -- these are not things that seem to fall into a single category. But if you have a strong aversion to or fear of half a dozen of the things on these lists, you should consider that you might be agoraphobic. Apparently, agoraphobes do not typically develop aversions to particular animals, or numbers, or any of the other hundreds of possible things a person might hate or fear. Dr. Drew learned in his class that it is about leaving your comfort zone, and I have read that elsewhere, but I don't really understand it. I have no problem singing solos in public -- why should that be within my comfort zone, while calling my hairdresser for an appointment or answering my own telephone is not? Other descriptions claim that the connection among all the things that agoraphobes usually have trouble with is that they are all situations that are hard to escape from. An open place offers no shelter, an appointment means that you are trapped in a place, a freeway is hard to get off of once you are on it. I don't know. It may be that all the things on the list really have in common is their connection with agoraphobia.

Agoraphobes avoid these things to an unreasonable degree, or if they cannot avoid them, they suffer over them to an unreasonable degree. They also  usually have excuses for their aversions. So, for example, I have a list of aversions associated with driving. Of course, I don't drive on scary roads. But I also dislike driving on freeways, because I am out of practice. And I hate driving in winter weather, because I grew up in California. And I don't like to drive long distances, because I drive an old car. I don't like to drive to unfamiliar places, because I get lost easily. I don't like to drive at night, because I cannot see well in the dark any more. There may be others that I can't think of right now. And, if I do nothing about this, there will undoubtedly be more developing over time. The result of this long -- and growing -- list of completely separate reasons to avoid different kinds of driving is that there are very few situations in which I can drive with comfort. Eventually, I suppose, I will not be able to drive at all.

Driving is an area in which I actually do feel fear. But most of the things on those lists that I recognize as issues for me are aversions, not fears. I am not afraid of making appointments. I do not fear my hairdresser, or even my doctor. But it is very hard for me to make appointments. I haven't had my hair cut for six months. I don't know why. I had never associated it with my agoraphobia. But it is actually a typical thing for agoraphobes. And, once it is pointed out, I have to acknowledge that it is a bit odd.

I assumed that my dislike of shopping (except in book stores and yarn shops) was because I work in a store. Naturally, I would not want to shop on my days off. But I work in a bookstore. You might think that, if I avoided shopping because I get tired of stores, it would be bookstores that I avoided. But in fact, I find it very easy and enjoyable to shop for books. I almost never shop for clothes. Even when I actually need clothes, I put it off for months and then do it online. In fact, although in the past year I have gone down several dress sizes, I have bought exactly three new pieces of clothing. I normally buy three books every week, yet I have only bought three pieces of clothing in a year, in spite of an obvious actual need for clothes. The average American woman buys an article of clothing every week -- probably a lot more than she needs, but I have obviously gone too far the other direction. I can tell you my supposed reasons for this, but an examination of my reasons shows pretty clearly that they are not real.

And of course I have to shop for groceries, almost every week. But I dislike grocery stores very much. In a grocery store, or on other kinds of shopping trips that I cannot avoid (like back to school with the kids), I begin after a while to feel overwhelmed. I have sometimes thought that it is the fluorescent lights that cause this, or a confusing layout in a particular store, but I now am forced to realize that it is actually agoraphobia. No wonder I love the Schwann's man.

Agoraphobia is often connected with panic attacks. I have only experienced panic attacks in driving on those scary roads I told you about, and driving in winter weather. Agorophobes who experience panic attacks unexpectedly and without warning may find that this becomes the center of their lives -- when and where will the next attack come, and how can they avoid it?  It seems very likely, when I am driving in snow, that I will die from sheer terror. I laugh about this -- not at the time, of course -- but I have to admit that worrying over it consumes a lot of my attention in the winter. As soon as snow is predicted, I begin worrying about having to drive in it. This is the only one of my aversions that I am really not able to avoid. It would be a very good thing if I could get over that fear.

Over the past week, as I have read more about agoraphobia and discovered that all these odd things (yes, I was aware that I was a little odd about the telephone) are characteristic of agoraphobia, I have come to the conclusion that I ought to do something about this. Very few agoraphobes seek treatment, which should not be surprising since that would require making an appointment, probably over the phone, and then driving somewhere. And we usually only perceive our disorder as a problem when we are unsuccessful at avoiding something we have an aversion to -- like me with winter driving. And, frankly, I have always felt that the problem was in having to drive in winter weather, not in being unreasonably scared of it. Now that I am aware that this is an actual disorder, will I do something about it? Will I be able to?

I'll let you know.

(I do not feel bad about showing you all these terrifying pictures, because I know that only 1% of the population will be scared by them, so probably no one out there is suffering.)

It is like spring, warm and soft with rain. There are new leaves unfurling on the rose bushes and robins strutting around the garden.

I am seized with knitter's remorse. How could I have spent all those cold months making small things like hats, scarves, and socks? How could  I have knitted up all that cotton and linen, and left myself with nothing but wool? Hopkins will be finished just as it gets to be too warm to wear it. And then I will have Erin to do, a cardigan even heavier, warmer, and generally woolier than Hopkins. What was I thinking? I'll have a lapful of wool in the summer!

The sensible course would be to knit all the small things in the summer. Then, in the crisp days of autumn, with a drawer full of completed Christmas gifts, I can enjoy knitting Erin, and have something new to wear when it gets cold again. So I will be knitting Hopkins faithfully while it is still fairly cool, and staunchly resisting the siren call of the remaining pieces of the linen/cotton bath ensemble, the beaded piano bench cover, and all the rest of it.

Meanwhile, I have managed to cut out about half the quilt pattern. I am ending up, as promised by the directions, with a sort of enormous paper doily and many torn bits which I am having to repair. I trust that this process will become more enjoyable at some point in the future.

And, speaking of siren calls, if you were like me and could not resist the lure of the DNA scarf (I made three), then you might also like the periodic table of the elements sweater. You can click on the small picture on this site and see it in all its glory. I am not having much trouble resisting it, myself. I do however have the idea of a periodic table quilt on my list of projects to do in some future parallel universe in which I have lots of extra time. Speaking of extra time, Orgue has asked me to help make costumes for the kids of the church I no longer attend (except as a double agent). I have not outright refused, but I think it is sad that the more obvious people -- like the members of his choir, the parents of the kids in question, people who still attend the church -- are not volunteering. However, this is a reflection of the reason I have changed churches. How can you have 700 professed Christians in a group, and continually have a lack of volunteers? For anything? Perhaps they are all madly trying to get their wooly sweaters completed before the weather turns too warm.

I have largely given up on the idea of finishing #1 son's quilt by his birthday, but I still feel rather busy. I still have to finish those black clothes before the spring concert, too. Hmm. I may have to add my name to the list of people who have refused to help make those costumes.

Leonidas has done his spring cleaning and written about it very amusingly. He is especially proud of the fact that it was done without any sharp edges. (I am proud of the fact that I have finally figured out how to make small links like everybody else, so rest assured that I am not looking down on Leonidas.)

Those of us on the HGP are doing our spring cleaning and decorating at a leisurely pace, one room at a time, and this should be the week for #1 son's room. He is not cooperating. #1 daughter and I came up with a very cool plan, based on the quilt he chose. We intended to color-wash his walls. You can see the technique here in #2 daughter's room, but we planned to do it in blue. Then we would go over it a second time with the same color, using snazzy Celtic knot stencils (like the knot in his chosen quilt pattern). This gives a subtle effect. Then we would pick up the blue, black, and white colors of the quilt to arrange his room in a manly yet snazzy style -- never mind. He is convinced that anything in any way reminiscent of decorating is feminine. I will just have to clean the room, and ignore the fact that it looks a lot like a bus station waiting room. It will at least be a clean bus station waiting room.

Sighkey asked what "frogging" means. It means pulling out your knitting. You "rip-it, rip-it." And I did, too. I knitted until it was obvious that the bathmat could not be completed according to the pattern with the specified amount of the specified yarn (do I sound a little bitter toward that book?), and pulled it back to the end of the third pattern repeat. Then I did the edging. Sigh. It is a nice mat, though, even if it is smaller than it should have been. I wouldn't want a sweater made of this stuff, but I love linen pillowcases and good cotton sheets, and this linen/cotton mix is very nice for home furnishings. Although Dr. Drew questioned whether people could really step on such a wonderful thing comfortably.

We enjoyed the visit with #2 daughter and the guys. Mostly we talked and ate and played games. There was a little music, a little sightseeing, and the kids all went and shot some hoops in the dark last night. #2 daughter sang very beautifully in church, and Orgue joined us for lunch. Then we had dinner with my parents.

The boys and I went to a bead shop and found box after box of wonderful beads (I guess this is what you would expect to find in a bead shop, but I had never been to one before). I have been toying with the idea of making a piano bench cover from the same book that let me down so badly with the bathmat pattern. They have a pattern for a beaded piano cushion. #2 daughter thought it was a bit over the top, but now that I have seen all those little boxes of beads, I am thinking it would be fun.

We have lovely spring weather, too. I hope your weekend was as nice as mine.