This new grandchild is going to be one lucky dude (or dudette)! The day after I announced the impending arrival to my mom, she started on a quilt. And it’s done already! Can you tell she’s excited about her first great-grandchild? The quilt arrived in the mail the other day and it’s just too cute. I wasn’t able to get a very good picture, but here it is. If you can’t make out the detail, it’s Noah’s ark with all the little animals.

Of course, not to be outdone, I completed something as well:

This is made from Plymouth Encore. It was good to knit with – more acrylic than I prefer, but enough wool to make it acceptable. But the good thing is that it can be used and thrown into the washer without fear. I must admit, though, that I caved and decided that I really need to make a more heirloom style blanket, so have started on an Estonian Shawl in white Baby Ull. This yarn is perhaps my mostest favorite that I have ever worked with. It has all the qualities of 100% wool, but is very, very soft. Although it is machine washable, I don’t machine wash my projects anyway. I made myself a sweater from it several years ago and it is one of my favorites.

The Stork sweater is coming along nicely, although cotton on size 0 needles does tend to be a little hard on the hands. I give that as my excuse for starting the shawl – so I have something easier to trade off with.

And, the benefits of having a computer literate daughter-in-law. Abby is working on a program to help me keep track of all of my yarns, needles, books, patterns and projects. It will be available in Macintosh format and is in the testing stages now. She hopes to market it, so I will keep all you Mac addicts out there informed!

For now I am going to get off the computer. I have spent the last 5 hours working on school papers. For my Sociology class I had to write three (thankfully short) papers on the following subjects: Should violent content in movies and video games be censored by the government? (No, but they should be labeled), Is Sweden correct in outlawing corporal punishment? (No, but the government should step in when a child is in danger of physical harm) and Should drugs be legalized? (No, but some minor possessions should be decriminalized and more money should be diverted from enforcement to prevention). So there you have all of my opinions in a nutshell. The real challenge was stretching them out into at least three pages each. Actually, not as hard as it sounds – I tend to run on and had trouble keeping them to three pages. So, a break is in order and I’m off to knit!