Six inches to go on mom's shawl. I should be able to get that done this week.

I'm glad. I'm ready to move on to another project. I love to knit gifts, but I don't like knitting to a deadline.

A couple of other things:
I really the concept of Artful Yarns. These are yarns manufactured by JCA. There are several lines: Circus (boucle), Portrait (really lovely mohair), Museum (fat bulky wool), Jazz (wool/alpaca), Dance (chunkified cotton), and Fable (another cotton blend).

The thing I really like about these yarns - and that I think was way clever on the company's part - is that each yarn comes with a pattern on the label that takes one ball of the yarn.

So you can "test drive" the yarn without making a huge commitment. And because I love small projects, this yarn really has got my interest. I've got some Circus waiting to be made up into the foot-warmer socks (I am skeptical that 93 yards of a bulky yarn will be enough for a pair, but we'll see). I've also got some of the Dance for a "hippie bag".

I would be more likely to want to "test drive" any yarn if there is a small, simple project (preferably with the pattern free and right on the label). And I love the color names: Circus comes in "Old Elephant", "Palm Reader" and other color names like that. (The yarns are pretty much all variegated or ombre colors)

Also, the "Circus" foot warmer sock pattern has short rowed heels (like on a commercial sock). I've never tried that before but the instructions seem to make sense the way they are written, so I'll give it a try.