True confessions

I confess that I know you're not supposed to trim your lilacs until after they've finished blooming. But I want to be a polite neighbor, and trimmed them last weekend, then brought the clippings into the house to brighten my kitchen table. Look at all of the shades of blue and purple in those flowers.

I confess that I've been doing some spinning lately -- not a lot, just a little -- but enough to see some progress on the bobbin. This is almost all of that Alpine Meadows roving I picked up in Santa Fe. You can't see the orange angelina in the picture, but it's a multi-dimensional, sparkly yarn. I discovered that if you use the "inch worm" technique of drafting, the yarn stays smooth and the angelina doesn't stick out. If you use a long draw (my favorite technique0 the angelina makes a sparkly halo. Well, it's been a fun and educational roving, that much is true.

I confess that I cast on for and started knitting on the Revisited Chanel sweater back. I'm still plugging away at the Rainbow socks and the Emperor's seamless hybrid as well as struggling to start a Pi shawl (again, this time out of Sockotta yarn). But the Call of the Boucle was too strong. It's going really fast; I've got over seven inches done now, more than double what I had when I took the picture.

Isn't that a great fabric? The purl side is the "right" side on this one, and you can really see a difference between the two sides. The fabric is feather-light and soft, and it's going to make a great sweater. But I really do need to put on the gas and get the socks finished so I can be ready for the Summer of Socks 2007. I'd like to get a ball of that bamboo Trekking to try.

I confess that I fell prey to the Yarn Harlot's photos of her new Juno sweater and ordered my own copy of Rowan 40. I guess I'll always be a sucker for a cleverly-placed saxon braid.