Good knitting but crappy day

For some reason my children have decided to push all my buttons and test my limits today. They can probably tell that I'm feeling terrible (cough, head congestion, tired, etc.) and that they might be able to get away with more than usual. Nope. What it really means is that they get away with LESS because I'm already ticked off and not feeling well. Between the kids and people trying to push the boundaries on my newly-created ChartingLace group, it's been an interesting day.

However, I do have some knitting to show.

This is the start of my Diamond Fantasy Shawl from Sivia Harding.

I'm using yarn from KnitPicks, their Color Your Own merino (which is my favorite yarn at the moment) that I dyed using ProChem dyes, on Crystal Palace size US 5 needles.

I've just finished the first time through the second chart. Her chart is very interesting; she hasn't followed convention and made the chart so that the RIGHT side is always on the chart, but instead she's made it so that the WORKING side is always on the chart. So you're still following one row from right to left, then the next from left to right, but you do the stitch exactly as shown. So if you see a purl symbol, you make a purl. Normally if you're on a wrong side row and you see a purl, you'd knit, so that the PURL would be on the right side. Not so in these charts, and in a lot of ways it's easier. It would've been nice to have a note of that somewhere in the pattern though.

I also just finished blocking my Flared Lace Smoke Ring from Heartstrings and I think it turned out beautifully!

It's kind of dark yarn for seeing the lace pattern, so here's a detail shot with a piece of paper between the layers:

The yarn is from Furlana Yarns, and is a woolen spun lace weight merino/possum/silk. My wonderful sister gave it to me for Christmas. I ended up doubling it, and while I didn't do as many repeats as called for in the pattern it's still a very good-sized smoke ring. I've got probably 1/3 of the yarn left on each of the two balls.

I knitted it on US 5 needles from Crystal Palace.

This was a fun knit, and you can't even tell that I messed up pretty badly on one round of the motif. Woo hoo! This was NOT a good item to knit late at night when I wasn't paying attention and was too lazy, uh stubborn to rip, but after I got about 1/3 of the way through I had the pattern memorized and it started to really flow.

Oh yes, and here's my boy modeling my smoke ring:

He's quite the funny little guy--I had tried it on to admire it and he wanted me to take it off and put it on HIM. What a cutie! The bruise btw is from where his big sister rammed her large trike into him while he was on his big-wheel, knocking him over, because she "wanted to see what would happen." She found out that what happened was a lot of crying and a big old time out. Sigh. How did we ever survive childhood? How did our parents keep from killing us?