in other news

I was felled by a yucky stomach bug this week and really didn't feel much like blogging. It's the price I pay for a weakened immune system. My older son is home sick today, too. Not sure what his excuse is.

Also, my spouse is in Florida. As far as I know, he's not sick.

To compensate for my bitterness at having been struck down during a week of single parenting (I know, some of you have to deal with this kind of thing all the time), I thought I would show off a little.

Here is my latest clapotis. I made it for my mom.



She thinks she's not very photogenic but I think she's lovely.

I made this thing on tiny (2.75mm, if you care about these things) needles and a laceweight (read very fine) yarn. It nearly killed me.

I was working on it during chemo one day and one of the pharmacists, herself a knitter, shook her head and exclaimed, "You must really love your mother!"

I do.

And while I wouldn't necessarily recommend doing this as a laceweight (not just because it takes forever but because fixing errors is a painstaking process) but I am very pleased with the end results. The yarn is an alpaca and silk blend from Knit Picks and the scarf is soft, airy and has a lovely drape.

I think I am addicted to the clapotis. Although I'll do it in a thicker yarn and on bigger needles (the original was done in my much thicker yarn). Doing this on sock yarn will feel like a breeze.

And did you note the state of my walls?

I have been stripping wallpaper. It's part of a project that a friend is helping with (I know that should be "with which a friend is helping" but that felt awkward. Just want you sticklers to know that I am aware that I'm taking liberties). She offered to "paint a room" in my house in exchange for a bunch of kids' stuff we'd outgrown.

I definitely got the better end of that deal. We got a bunch of stuff out of our house and she has already devoted two afternoons to scraping the wallpaper in my hallway - on two floors and up the stairs.

I have to admit that I have never undertaken this kind of project before and I'm actually enjoying it. On our second afternoon we used "Concentrated Wallpaper Remover" from the hardware store and the hard-to-scrape stuff just melted off. Very cool. I hope it's not too terribly toxic. There didn't seem to be any fumes. It kind of smelled like dish soap.

There's another hour of stripping to do and then I gather everything has to be washed, then primed then painted. And then it will all look so good that the rest of the house will seem really dingy in contrast.

Finally, I feel like I can't conclude this post without mentioning the horrific situation in Haiti. Please give what you can, to a reputable organization.

When the Yarn Harlot sent out the "knit signal" last week, I was prompted to direct my money to Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders). They are already set up to help and do excellent work aroun the world.

Click here to donate in Canada, the United States or everywhere else in the world (find your country in the menu on the left). The Harlot mentioned in her post that it is most helpful if you direct your donation to "Emergency Relief" or "Greatest Needs" instead of to a specific project.