I've started plying, I may never be heard from again

I've started plying the Opalessence. This is about 3 hours of work here. It doesn't look like much on the plying bobbin, but if you look at the bobbins of singles, it looks like even less. Either they are puffing up as I go, or I'm just not getting anywhere with this. I think my main problem is that there is so much twist in the singles, that even with my wheel set at the highest ratio (20:1), it takes longer than usual to get enough twist into the plying to balance the yarn. My other problem involves a large yellow puppy who keeps dragging his blanket around (in a very Linus kind of way) and sitting down to eat it. Explaining that if he eats his blankets he will only have a hard crate with nothing soft to snuggle with gets me nowhere. When I tell him, "No Bite," he just looks at me like, "You're spinning, what are you going to do about it?" He's definitely a teenager.

I've also been rereading the Harry Potter books in anticipation of Book 7 coming out this summer. I'm in the middle of Book 4, but had set it aside to read the Hap Shawls book (there's a link to Heirloom Knitting in yesterday's post). Sharon Miller has included about 8 or so pages of different color combinations traditionally used in the borders of Hap Shawls. Some of these are symmetrical ABCBA type pattern combinations, others are asymmetrical ABCBABA types of patterns, but the way she shows them is in a graph which shows how many rows were used for each color of each particular shawl. Now in the actual shawls, the stripes would be undulating from the Old Shale type of border that was traditionally used in Hap Shawls, but in her color representations, by using graph paper, the colors are shown in straight stripes. These stripes remind me of the stripes you would find on Rugby shirts, or school colors, or possibly Quidditch robes (like I said, I'm on Book 4, Harry Potter has been on the brain for a while now). So I thought, "Hey, a Gryffindor Hap Shawl!" But then I thought, well that doesn't make any sense at all, until for some reason, Professor McGonagall popped into my head. Couldn't you just see her all wrapped up in the evenings wearing tartan slippers, grading Transfigurations homework, with a gray Hap Shawl with burgundy and gold stripes on its outer borders wrapped around her shoulders? I mean we know Professor Trelawney wears a shawl, but I figure hers is mostly open lace, airy, and possibly with long fringe that would get in the way of any serious magic. Professor McGonagall would never wear anything so impractical, but I could easily see her in a simple, warm Hap Shawl. OK, maybe I should take a break from Harry Potter for a week or so after I finish Book 4, but I still really like the idea of a Gryffindor Hap Shawl. I might have to knit one this summer just to celebrate Book 7!