"We will only have peace when....."

It's been a week, in many ways.

This quotation from Golda Meir is striking to many of us right now:

In non-political news, work has been busy and I am getting ready to go to a conference that begins next Sunday, and then I drop by to see a friend in a play in North Texas on the way home, going on a Thursday evening so I can be here for the North Carolina Opera's season opener.

    

Tonight finished the local play where I'd done props and set dressing - not much needed of either:

I haven't finished the blanket I started last week, but it's close.  I am at the chaining-up phase.  One reason I didn't finish is that I realized in putting the cakes together that I would end up with a very wide band of the dark brown, and I didn't like it.  So I took out a bunch by making a blanket piece for Warm Up, America!  Since it would be a solid colour, I wanted to do some definite texture, and decided to practice the looping-up technique.  Stitch counts all made up by me on the fly:

Just before pulling the loops through each other.

I am REALLY not sure how this happened.

Finished block, with a border because it was
a bit smaller than the standard size.

Because I needed something small to carry around, I started a cowl.  Four times.  I am still having issues with getting the stitch count correct for the initial band.  But persevering!

While looking for something small and carry-around, I decided to start a baby item for the fall Arts & Crafts Collective Holiday Sale, since I have a cake of very pink yarn that wasn't used in the purples-and-pinks blanket.  After looking at patterns online and checking yardage, I decided on Bernat's Striped Crochet Coat:

After being several rows into the bodice I realized I needed to make an adjustment and increased the size of the buttonholes to accommodate the buttons I want to use.  Yes, frogging was involved.

Reading-wise, I gave up on Don't Pee on my Leg and Tell Me It's Raining, which I think would make a good essay but is much too long as a book.  Or I was too involved in that type of court when I was in private practice, and so none of what the book says is new to me.  I'm now reading Charlie Wilson's War, which is one of the suggested readings for a programme I am attending in November.  Definitely much more interesting to me.