Ye Gods, she's still here

Yep, I'm still around and finally had some time to get photos off my camera and resized and cropped in Paintshop Pro, and uploaded to flickr. (And as with most pf my posts, click on any of the pictures for a larger version. Especially the sweater pics. Really.) So this entry will actually contain some knitting content! In the 3 second "other news" bulletin: I didn't get my job back; I'll be starting an MA in Counseling at Oakland University in September; I'll be briefly visiting England in August to get the student visa; immigration paperwork sucks; so does trying to find health insurance that will cover the meds I need; and I had the most wonderful visit with my sister and adorable nephew which was the best soul medicine anyone could ask for.

And I've actually been knitting! Continuing on the sock kick (there's a pun in there somewhere), I made some Broadripple socks as a 50th birthday gift for my "folk sister" Sherry. Sherry loves purple, and claimed the very first object I ever knit - a scarf with blue/purple novelty yarn and black worsted - the moment it was off the needles. I was a bit worried as the only shoe size information I knew was "small" but with the stretch of the Fixation yarn, they fit perfectly. I now have requests from two other people for identical pairs!

	We drove down to Maryland last weekend for the big 50th birthday party, which was just great fun. And for the person who's complained that they wanted to see pictures of me (and because it was such a great party with such wonderful people)...
Me, Terry and musician Eric Schwartz	From left to right..Siobhan Quinn, Laurie Laba, Mary Pittari and me.
	Terry and I relaxing and listening to featured performer and exceptional songwriter Greg Greenway. Sherry and her husband Steve run a house concert series where we've played a couple of times, so absolutely knew how to put on a great concert. And wonderful food too.
So, back to knitting ... here's the other big project I've been working on: an Aran Sweater from the Harmony Guide to Aran and Fair Isle Knitting. It's a gift for a friend, who picked out the yarn and the pattern. It's my first sweater, so I'm a little intimidated about the whole putting-it-together process, but right now, I'm enjoying knitting away on the back.
And here are close-ups of the side and centre cable panels. The edges of the sweater and the middle of the diamonds are filled in with double moss stitch. I have to admit, there are occasional times I impress myself, and this is one of them.
And finally ... I'm also working on the Odessa hat, which I started on Wednesday night, with lots of help from Lynne with the bead stringing and is coming on rapidly. Although I did find a knot in the yarn and so had to restring about half the beads, which was immensely frustrating.
I'm still making slow progress on the Cedar Creek and toe-up Pomatomus socks from the previous knitting post, and about to start the Shedir chemo cap from Knitty's breast cancer issue for a friend who's going through chemo right now. And that's pretty much the update. Now I've got to also go and catch up on my commenting/visiting friends' blogs, which I've shamefully neglected over the past month too. Thanks for reading this far, and I hope it won't be nearly so long before the next update!