Robert was sick and the baby was teething this weekend. Talk about a grumpy pair! Sam and I escaped for a couple of hours on Saturday and went to Starbuks, where we split a blueberry muffin and some chocolate milk. Over this repast, Sam regaled me with the adventures of Spiderman and ogled two police officers who were sipping their lattes.

I couldn’t imagine better company and didn’t want to go back to the war zone right away, so I took my little guy to the library. Last time I had attempted this, he was much younger and wasn’t as interested at looking at books as he was in running about the place and squealing. Cowed by patrons giving me dirty looks, I quickly shepherded him out of there.

He behaved himself like a little gentleman this time. He selected a great big pile of books and insisted on carrying them himself. While I browsed through some of the fiction and knitting books, he sat quietly on a stool and read. I was very impressed!

I found a couple of interesting knitting books, but the best one was Knitting with Beads by Jane Davis. I like a number of the patterns including the cloche, a cabled hat and the pair of cabled gloves. (Liz knit a pair of them last fall. They’re really pretty!) In my humble opinion, beads don’t always enhance the final product. They didn’t exactly detract from the design, but they didn’t do anything to make them more attractive either. In particular, the cabled hat and gloves would be perfectly lovely sans beading. On the other hand, there’s a beret with a beaded leaf pattern which is simply stunning. (The gloves and beret are pictured on the page linked to above.)

I’ve started one beading project: Pascale from the winter Rowan magazine (it’s the hat). I threaded all 1400 beads on the yarn (it broke once and I had to scramble to pick up all the beads before Claire got them) and am working up the nerve to begin. While I think I’m going to enjoy this project, the beginning hasn’t been a propitious one!

Sorry for not posting any photos…the camera needs to recharge!