more on weaving, finance, anniversaries

Well, I’ve bent my New Year’s resolution a bit, but the spirit is quite intact.  I started weaving with the Prism La Boheme (colorway Abalone) yarn, but realized very quickly that I wasn’t going to have enough yarn to complete the shawl.  Rather than waste three skeins of La Boheme plus the lovely silk warp I spent all that time dyeing, I ran out and bought two more skeins of the La Boheme.  Doh!  That’s a no-brainer.

I’m pleased with the La Boheme shawl so far.  I started weaving it in plainweave, but it really didn’t look very good ““ booooring is the best description.  Then I tried alternating it with stripes of a lovely blue/purple ribbon yarn that I just bought at Webs, but that looked a bit garish.  Finally I reverted to using my previous tie-up from one of the scarves, and that worked beautifully.  It has five-thread floats, which shows off the shine of the rayon boucle, and the mohair adds some fluff.  Whether it’s the best possible use of five skeins of La Boheme I’m not sure (it might well look prettier knitted), but it’s what I’m doing with five skeins of La Boheme.  It looks nice.  Once I’m done I’ll take a photo ““ shouldn’t take more than a day or two as the weaving goes very quickly once the loom is threaded.

I’ve decided what to do for my new travel shawl.  It will be an entrelac lace shawl in a myriad of patterns (no two squares alike), done in a fine silk or a fine cashmere yarn.  At the moment I’ve got it down to four possible yarns: a 1/14 cashmere, a 2/18 silk/wool yarn, a 2/12 silk, and a 2/28 silk.  I’m swatching them on various needles to see which I like best.  I’m guessing it will be the 2/28 silk or the 2/18 silk/wool yarn.

The root canal didn’t happen yesterday ““ the dentist couldn’t tell which of two teeth it was, so sent me home with a prescription for antibiotics.  Apparently after a few days on antibiotics, it’s often clearer which of multiple teeth is causing an ache”¦so I’ll take it for a couple days and see what happens.  I sincerely hope we can resolve this before I go to Ghana.

I’ve made reservations at Chez Panisse (the legendary restaurant in Berkeley) for me and B. on the 24^th, to celebrate our 1-year anniversary.  (Actually our 1-year anniversary is on the 28^th, but as I’ll be in Ghana at the time, we’re celebrating early.)  It’s been a great year ““ we love each other very much.  We’re discussing finding a place together, once my lease runs out (March-April timeframe).  Probably a big 2-bedroom or a small 3-bedroom apartment, not sure where in the city yet.

I have opened three more savings accounts at eTrade and, as soon as the various transactions go through and I can hook them up to my main account view, will start doing automatic deductions to save up for various big expenses (car insurance, foreign travel, personal training, etc.).  Credit B. with inspiring me ““ I’ve never been this organized about my finances before.