Shawls & What's on the Hooks

Busy week!
Monday evening I went to my first meeting of the Shawl Ministry. There were about 20 women. One was crocheting a ripple, I was doing Tunisian and everyone else was knitting. But no one was sticking to the basic pattern that had been given to me. There were so many interesting patterns, yarns, and colors - from pastels to bright!I took in the white classic crochet shawl that I had finished, and while there finished the Tunisian one I did in claret (a red wine color). I started a new one, baby blue in a honeycomb pattern - not sure that I want to stick to that pattern.
Decided I needed to spend a little less time on shawls and work on things to wear at the CGOA conference (2 more weeks!!!) So I started on the Must Have Blouse in the new book 24-Hour Crochet Projects. It is so attractive. The stitch pattern involves alternating doubles and slip stitches, the slips pull the double down into a small bobble. It seems like you don't make any upward progress on that row. The book says it will take 14 hours. I can tell that it will take me longer than that, but I'm about 2/3 of the way up the back, so it will still be a fast project. I also want to make a small purse to take, mine fills up with so much stuff and becomes so heavy. If I have a small crocheted purse I will carry along only the stuff I need at the time, the rest can wait in my suitcase (or at home). I found a great pattern on line yesterday, thanks to my friends at cplist.
"Honeycomb Crochet Purse"
So on the way to the library for a tutoring session I stopped at Michaels for the yarn listed in the pattern TLC Essentials. It was on clearance, so I picked up 2 colors, then got distracted by what else was on clearance - Boucle! Bernat Soft Boucle. "Bernat Soft Boucle"
I finally put back the TLC and picked 2 skeins of a denim and brown Boucle (Westport Shades) for my purse, and a pretty blue/green/purple Boucle (Carnival Shades)for a shawl in the future. No purse handles, so on the way home from the library swung around to AC Moore and bought two different sets of purse handles. That means that a second purse in is the future, doesn't it?
Thought about the purse pattern on the way home and realized it's really too detailed for the Boucle, so will make it in one of the blues that I have in my stash - navy, royal, country, denim heather... That means I have Boucle in stash for another shawl!
When I got home and checked my e-mail we had a special request for shawls for every member of a family. So I replied that I had the wine colored on ready to go, and could possibly have a second ready by Saturday. Then started in on the Boucle. I was going to make it simple and fast, Tunisian Simple stitch, but it was curling. So I am alternating one row of Simple and one row of purl (what almost everyone else calls purl, I call it a "front purl"). It is tremendously soft, and very pretty.
In classic crochet, I'm about 3/4 finished with the ripple afghan. Great urge to start on one of the round baby afghans. I keep telling myself to finish up some of these other projects first. The patterns and yarn are nicely in the stash!
On to crocheting.