I've also decided to do an Irish Diamond Shawl from Folk Shawls for a Christmas gift. After googling for a while, I decided to do as others have done and use a lace weight instead of a fingering weight. I'm using Jaggerspun Zephyr in black, and hoping it doesn't look like the recipient is in mourning or something. I showed my husband a few shawls from that book that I was deciding between, and he said of the Irish Diamond Shawl, "Cool, it looks like bat wings!" which, surprisingly, I failed to see as incentive to knit it. After I acknowledged that it did indeed look like bat wings (with accompanying eye roll), he said that it was also very pretty. I had been leaning that way anyway, so Irish Diamond it is. The bonus is that a cone of Zephyr is enough to make more than two lace shawls, so my next next project may be a black shawl for myself.
I find myself once again apologizing for being out of touch with the knitting blog world. It's a tricky time, with much traveling and house hunting and packing up/throwing out our stuff in preparation of moving. I can sometimes manage ten minutes a day on the internet with all this going on, so I'm just going to be slow for a while. Hopefully, once we've moved, I'll be more in touch.
Reading: I have read a lot since my last post, I think. I read Jane and the Ghosts of Netley and Jane and His Lordship's Legacy by Stephanie Barron, and loved them. I just don't get tired of the Jane Austen mysteries. I'm currently on Peter and the Shadow Thieves by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson, the second of the Peter Pan prequels. I loved the first, and the second is very fun so far.
Writing: Shelved, I'm afraid, until moving is complete.
Cooking: Urgh. Too much traveling, not enough food in the house.
