Little Rabbit Foo Foo

It started like this:

A few hours later it looked like this:

A few days later it looked like this:

Pattern: Honey Bunny by Yvonne Boucher

Yarn: Bernat Satin in "camel" and a little left over white

Needles: US 3

Thoughts: I love knitting this pattern! The results are immediate and it's just SO. CUTE. It's a great last minute present that knits up quick.

I thought it might be a good idea to knit a few quick little baby gifts and try and get ahead of the "TSUNAMI of BABIES" that tends to interrupt my planned knitting. Especially since I was waiting for the new yarn to arrive to make the blanket that shall not be named. (Yes, we're returning to the horror next week.) This little project doesn't have a home yet, but I'm sure some little girl will be happy to give her a cuddle.

The End. :-) (Can you handle the tail? I can hardly handle the adorable wrapped up in that tail!)

A Little Birdy Told Me...

A little birdy told me if I didn’t finish my mittens with the birdy embroidery it would bother me forever… and so, I did what the birdy told me and finished them up.

In my opinion the Birds make the mittens! Aren’t they cute?

A little birdy also told me that it’s about time I showed you a picture of the Plain A$$ socks since they were finished a long time ago.

Pattern: Sock Recipe: A Good Plain Sock by Stephanie Pearl McPhee aka "The Yarn Harlot"

Yarn: OnLine Supersocke Cotton Beach Colour in colorway 945

Needles: US 2

Notes: My gauge is looser it seems these days, and the US 2 wasn’t the best of choices. Mental note to self- go down a size for a tighter fit. I knit these so fast I impressed myself! It took me 2.5 days to get both socks off the needles and on the blockers. Impressive!

I love being able to just knit, aimlessly without thinking. This was a great distraction. Even the pattern lines up beautifully- and the anal retentive in me enjoys that everything is asymmetrical and looks the same.

I’ve obeyed the little birdy about showing you the mittens and the socks, but it wanted me to show you something else too. I’m hesitant to do this, scared to be honest with you and myself, but I’ve decided to put it out there publicly.

The little birdy wanted me to show you MOST of my stash.

Sock & Fingering Weight Yarn

DK & Worsted Weight Yarn

(The little birdy was thoughtful enough to not make me show you my acrylic stash and leftovers that sit in the box without a project on the horizon. That’s my “shame” stash that only I am privy too.)

It’s time to admit to myself how much there is and to set some goals in dealing with it.

This is the stash that I’ve collected that needs to get smaller. I’m not suggesting that it needs to disappear overnight- but I will not get a new box for stash. I love this yarn. It is time that I knit with it. Current stash storage is tight. Nothing, and I mean nothing, is going to fit in that box right now. I chose not to knit hats this year so that I may, instead, focus on stash busting a little more.

If you double click on the photos above, I’ve added some notes that will show up on the flickr page when you hover over stash items. Some plans for the stash are revealed there. My goal is to whittle this down by half. I will show you these pictures again, sometime in the summer with the used yarn blurred out, and again in December, so I can publicly assess what I’ve used up.

If, and when I’ve made room in the boxes, I can add back to the pile**… specifically I will buy the Rowan Lima yarn that I have not stopped obsessing about and make something beautiful with… but only, after there is some stash down progress here.

I’m looking forward to making some beautiful projects this year, with yarn from my stash!

As for that little birdy, he wanted me to show you two other things I’ve gotten around to starting, but I told him to take a hike. Birdies have gotten so demanding! (We’ll discuss on the next blog).

** as always exceptions to the rules will be made. There will and always will be room in my stash for Wollmeise. If I stumble over a Loopy Ewe update, I’m scooping that stuff up! Also- baby blanket yarn won’t count, because there will be a little bit of that too this year.

What I Knit on my Christmas Vacation

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Today is, sadly, the last day of my Christmas vacation. Tomorrow I return to work and get back to the grind- but today, I have one last day to reflect on how awesome it is to live a life of leisure.

I knit a lot this vacation. I listened to podcasts, I watched the first two seasons of Mad Men, maybe the first 3 of 6 Star Wars movies and most of all, I knit through all of it. With that kind of focus on the knitting- there was bound to be some progress. I finished the following before New Years (and therefore will be counted in the 2009 list of my FO's).

Pattern: Marlene by Cookie A

Yarn: Estelle Cadenza in sexy colorway name 955 (purple). (PLEASE YARN PEOPLE, it is so much more fun when you NAME your yarn instead of giving it a number.)

Needles: US 2

More Pics because these look smashing: (if you are a Ravelry member there are always more photos on that site)

Thoughts: I couldn't start the new year with an old purse sock. I decided I had the brain power to commit to the sock so I just went for it, and was surprised how quickly, (and without errors) I was able to grind this sock out when I put my head down. The yarn makes the project just pop- and I really hope they keep my dear friend Melly's feet warm!

Also, keeping my hands warm, and knit to sort of matching my Burberry scarf:

Pattern: Bird in Hand by Kate Gilbert

Yarn: Cascade 220 in 8505 and 4102 (or white and pink)

Needles: US 1 for the cuffs and US 3 for the hand portions

Thoughts: I know that I'm supposed to embroider the bird in the thumb of the mitten- and lord knows I tried. I'll still try, but I wish I had heeded the advice of everyone else who knit these and embroidered before I seamed up the thumbs, so far all attempts at embroidery have failed. I also wish that I'd done a different color palette. The pink is light enough that the pattern doesn't really "pop" out, and you have to look at it for a bit before you get the effect of the pattern.

I did really love the braid and the cuffs. I want to put a braid in everything now!

In general I'm a little disappointed with these mittens. (Although they are incredibly warm and practically bullet proof and I will wear them for the remainder of this cold winter!) I'm still knitting fair isle too tightly. I had to rip these mittens out three times to get a hand size I liked. Here's the difference between the hand on US 2's and the hand on US 3's. (3's are a much more comfortable fit.)

My stranding still pulls and puckers and I'm annoyed with myself that I haven't mastered this yet. I want to sit down and knit with Magses and have her show me what I'm doing wrong. Her fair isle always turns out so beautifully and smooth. My cuffs are perfect... but my hands are not. I wonder where the difference is? I still want to get good at this technique... I will still try more mittens, but I'm hoping that there will be a magic moment where the light bulb turns on and I get it.

With the mittens and socks off the needles, I found myself staring down at a New Years project-less. Having knit the Marlene's and Bird in Hands, I was longing for something simple. Really simple. I cast on a plain a$$ sock, and I'm enjoying the reprieve from having to pay close attention to a chart and counting my stitches. I made pretty impressive progress in a very short amount of time. (I would so love to finish these today!)

Who doesn't love a project that is mostly knit stitch?

As far as New Years resolutions go, I've decided not to pressure myself into hats this year. I'm staring down another year of baby blankets, and every time I take some time off from the blankets, I end up knitting hats to try and catch up to my total. I'm missing out on knitting the projects I do want to knit because I'm trying to stay up to date on the hats. It's not to say that I won't be knitting hats. I just won't be attempting to knit 52 of them. My only other resolution is to whittle away at the stash more aggressively. My Loopy Ewe order arrived on Wednesday last week- and it contained the most beautiful stash addition.

This is Madelintosh in "Window Pane". It's so unbelievably squooshy I just want to squeeze it in my hands all the time. I might take it to work to squeeze it when I get stressed... this seems to have the magic powers to make any bad day disappear.

I have a lot of yarn. It's time to knit it down. I love my stash. I love what's in my stash- I just need to get to KNITTING my stash. 2010 is going to be a good year if I just knit with my stash. So I'm going to try. I'm not going to make promises of no slip ups along the way- I'm weak, and I'm also flush with Pudding gift cards from generous family members. (I'm also dreaming of Rowan's "Lima" yarn and what I could make of it, I have fallen in love. But I won't allow myself a purchase until I make some room in the stash boxes.)

2010 is off to a great start- looking forward to see what I'm going to make this year!

Having Fun Again

I'm having so much fun!

Yes. You heard me. There is no whining in this post.... just happy fun feelings about knitting this week. Stepping away from obligations gave me a chance to really throw myself into some fun projects.

Firstly, I proud to announce that the 52nd hat is off the needles and I have fulfilled my resolution to knit a hat a week this year.

These six hats are the last of the bunch for the year. I haven't decided what to do about next year. I've knit 104 hats in the last two years for the hospital, and well, I'm thinking that 2010 might be the year that I cut back a little, and focus more on what I want to knit. I'll get back to you on what I decide.

I also knit a hat and mitten set for little Jack Ryan over Christmas. Unfortunately he and his parents left for their holiday before I could give it to him, but it's a cute set all the same!

Pattern: My hat pattern and the Frazzled Knits "Wee Baby Mitts"

Yarns: Leftover Bernat Satin in Red and White

Needles: US size 3 for the mittens US size 8 for the hat

Christmas this year, was as lovely as ever. My husband bought me a pair of Signature Needle DPNs and I can't wait to try them out! My family decided to give me what I wanted most, and several Pudding gift cards were happily opened from under the tree.

This was, without coincidence, a well timed gift, as my MiL and I went on our third annual boxing day yarn sale EXTRAVAGANZA. (This year we were joined by Anne and Jocelyn who seemed just as enthused about the yarn sales as we were. I say, the more the merrier!) To say that Pudding was mobbed this year is an understatement. Pudding was OVER RUN with knitters looking to score deals, and thankfully they seemed ready for us.

I showed considerable restraint, especially given that I feel like my stash is a bit big-ish right now and needs some culling down. However, a call from my Grandparents on Christmas day did warrant some purchases. (Grandpa wanted to know where his socks were, apparently he wanted a pair.) I decided to pick up the yarn to make both of them pairs, since I didn't really have "their colors" in my stash.

For Grandpa, who wants 'plain' socks, I see another pair of Mr. Pitts in my future with the very manly "Regia 4-fadig Tweed" sock yarn.

For Grandma who didn't ask for socks, but I decided I can't just send along one pair, I picked up some "Online Supersocke 100 - Florida" in a lovely purple color. I haven't decided what pattern I'll make exactly, but I think I'll keep it simple too.

(Kudos to the husband who did a great job capturing the purples in this.) I'm hoping to send these are anniversary gifts to them for their March 17th anniversary. Keeping the pattern simple should make it easier to grind out 2 pairs. (hmmmm... perhaps this could be my Rav-Olympic challange...)

While yarn shopping is fun, it's not the fun I'm alluding to in this post. I'm back knitting the Marlene's, (to which I am perilously close to running out of yarn) and alternating with knitting the Bird in Hand mittens, which have had some troubles of it's own. (But that's a story for another time.) It's fun to work on both projects and see progress. In the background I'm listening to "Craftlit", the podcast for crafter's who like books*.

Craftlit is a GEM of a find, and it's the perfect listening while I knit. She focuses on books that are in the public domain and therefore free to make available to the public. So far I've listened to Pride and Prejudice (LOVE THAT BOOK SO MUCH) this fall, and now over my holiday I've listened to the Legend of Sleepy Hollow and currently making my way through Henry James' Turning of the Screw. Heather is a former school teacher, so each week, along with chapters of the book she talks about some history and key things to listen to, making the story come alive. I loved my English classes in high school and university and I'm having so much fun combining the two hobbies I love- reading and knitting. (As Heather says, "If your hands are too busy to pick up a book, at least you can turn one on.")

So that's been my holiday so far; podcasts and knitting- and quite frankly, I'm in heaven for it. Hopefully I'll be able to squeeze in another post before the end of the year and show you some completed items. In the mean time, I'm going to get back to having my fun. I hope your Christmas holiday has been productive and enjoyable as mine so far!

*The Podcaster Heather always says this, and it just describes the podcast so well.

Bits and Bobs

I have officially stepped back from the blanket. I appreciate all of your thoughtful comments and votes on my last post. Many of you are encouraging me to step back and start again, although those of you close to me have encouraged me to stay the course with the pattern. I've opted for a mild compromise. I have decided to stick with the original pattern idea, to sit down and rework the palm tree, but also order new colors, suiting a girl. New yarn will save this. Right? **tap tap** Is this thing on? Bueller???

Since the blanket pressure is off until the new year (Knit Picks ordered today)- I've fully immersed myself in as many distracting projects as possible. I turned this:

Into these (I love this pattern SO MUCH):

Pattern: French Press Slippers (of AWESOMENESS) by Melynda Bernardi (Who, by the sounds of it, seems like a total sweetheart!)
Needles: US 15
Yarn: Patons Classic Wool in "Leaf Green"
Notes: LOVE THIS PATTERN STILL. I'm mildly perturbed that it looks like I may have skinned Kermit the Frog alive*... but they couldn't be more awesome.

Full Disclosure: I bought 3 skeins more of yarn to make more pairs of these and may have already just about finished the most recent pair. (Nello.. I'm looking in your direction, care to disclose your foot size?) I'm going to ask you to stage an intervention at some point. This project is so addictive and SUCH a crowd pleaser.

Aside from being addicted to slippers, I also managed to get my section of the WCOBB blanket "Ilanaaq" done. Despite the elventy billion miles of stocking stitch, I actually think this turned out pretty great. I love the cohesiveness of the pattern.

And finally, FINALLY, I got around to casting on my "Bird in Hand" mittens, which are going to be SMASHINGLY awesome. (Can you handle it? I can hardly handle the awesome.)

These tiny knitting distractions have been JUST what the doctor orderd as far as attempting to re-find my knitting mojo. But, even if I didn't have these distractions, I would have had this:

(L-R: Nancy, Rhonda, Shirley (mom), Phyllis (MiL), Sylvia, Mary, Robin, Carolina (our newsest knitting convert), ME (UGH photogenic and I don't ever show up in the same sentence), Renell and Kylar (who I'm sure will want to be a knitter when he grows up.)

We had our knitting group Christmas party and it was a blast. It's hard to wallow in knitting self-pity when such an enthusiastic and encouraging group of ladies are there cheering you on. It's a rare event that we were all able to be there, but I'm sure everyone would tell you that we love our little knitting group. My "Knitwits" night is the one I look forward to most of all. I know most of you lovely ladies read this blog- so THANK YOU for all your encouragement and support this year, you are by far my favorite cheering section and I look forward to all we're going to make in the new year. Can I recommend slippers? (Are we going to have an intervention at the next night in January?)

So that's what my little knitting world has been like leading up to Christmas. I feel good. I'm having fun. And that's what it's all about... right? I'm doubtful that I'm going to get a Christmas post together by Thursday, (there are just too many distractions), and so I want to take this time to wish my faithful readers, (all 8 of you- haha) a VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS!! See you at the Boxing Day Yarn sales! (Oh yes, I'm going!)

*No frogs were harmed in the making of the slippers. It only looks that way.

Epic Fail

This is supposed to look like a palm tree.

Yes. I realize that it doesn’t look like a palm tree. This is a problem because I followed the exact same pattern above, on the blanket… and it’s not looking much like a palm tree either.

Which means 2 things.

1) I screwed up transposing the pattern. (It should be noted that this in NO WAY DigKnitty’s fault or error in pattern writing. This one is ALL ME. *sobs*)

2) I have to rip back to the start of the second row of blue squares, because the center square is not going to resemble anything like a palm tree. That is going to greatly hinder my progress t0 “git ‘er done”.

I’m really struggling with motivation on this project, especially since over the weekend the husband, (who from time to time suffers from “brutally honest syndrome”) broke it to me that he couldn’t really “see” the patterns I was knitting.

I can, but I’m a knitter- husband, and the recipients of the blanket are NOT knitters… what if they can’t see it either? What if they think the blanket is just a bunch of oddly knit blue squares and are like “THIS is what we were waiting for?!” This is an epic blow to my knitting ego.

My knitting ego was smarting already because on Tuesday I also had to rip out the entire second sock for the purse sock.

(Thankfully I was only the cuff and one pattern repeat in.) I kept running out of stitches and when I started to tink back I started dropping stitches. The only way out was frogging the entire thing and starting again.

As if one trip to the “frog pond” was bad enough, I made 2 this week. (*more sobbing*) So, I’ve done the only thing a girl can do, when faced with this type of situation. I’ve put both projects in December time out. I need to step away. I need to clear my head. I need to not feel like an epic knitting failure. To soothe my rattled ego I did the only thing I could do to make myself feel better. I bought yarn. (Oh Loopy… you shouldn’t be so easily available to me… you’re the high I don’t need, but want so badly.) I think I earned my “Loopy Groupie” status with that one.

I also told myself I could cast on a new project, and bought the pattern for Bird in the Hand mittens which I have been chomping at the bit to knit. But, before I can cast that on, I need to fulfill my obligation to the latest WCOBB blanket that showed up on my doorstep last night. It’s the perfect thing I need right now, an all garter stitch blanket. Just knit stitch after knit stitch. I can’t screw that up, can I? (Somebody knock on wood!)

While I’m knitting these stitches I find myself thinking about what to do about the Magnum Opus blanket. I’m worried the patterns won’t show up. All this work would be for naught. I’m seriously, SERIOUSLY, considering casting this idea aside and just ordering more yarn to knit my friend a new blanket (Ravelry link), with an already lovely and established pattern.

What would you do (pretend you are an anal retentive perfectionist with a big knitting ego)?



Voting closes at Christmas. Help me decide!

Until then, ATTENTION KNIT GODS… bring back my Mojo!!!

1/3 Done is Still Better Than Zero Done!

It seems that professing on my blog my non-desire to knit this blanket actually was the kick start I needed to finally get my butt in gear and KNIT THE BLANET.

Yay... progress!

The last part of the story is finall depicted on my "Magnum Opus" project for Brandy. (I have to knit from the end to the beginning... so last parts first.)

I am, as usual, full of self loathing and doubt, on this project. I'm not happy with my chosen colors, (especially since this is for a girl) and I'm feeling like this is a rather stark, BLUE! then WHITE! blanket and there's not a smooth "color transition". (How is that for anal retentive?) The blue yarn is also pilling. I'm really not happy about that. This might be the Knit Picks project that ends the new "blanket yarn standard". Pilling does not a pretty project make.

Okay. Enough fussing. I am trying to love this blanket past it's faults.

Let's look a little closer at the designs, shall we? (There is NOTHING wrong with those!) (Please also be patient with me, when this blanket is done, I will do close up shots of the BLOCKED finished pictures and they are going to look so much better... but no sense blocking this early in.)

First up, representing "and then they had a baby" in the story of my friends, Lisa Vienneau & Allison Barret's design "New Arrival Stork Washcloth".

Second, representing their two very special furry family members, (Benny & Teddy), Lisa Millan's really cute "Puppy Love Dishcloth".

Thirdly, and designed by special request by Lisa Millan (WHO IS AWESOME, by the way...) the Toronto skyline, representing where the couple moved after they got married.

So yes, I can say that progress is finally under way. I am almost certain that I'm going to run out of yarn into this project so I may have to lift my promise that this blanket will be finished before 2010. I will say, instead, that I will work on this project and this project only until I run out of yarn and have to order more. Fair?

Okay- off to re-work part 2 of this blanket so that we can keep this progress train chugging along!

MOTIVATE ME

Oh people. The last blanket. The LAST blanket remains. And I could not want to knit something less. I am in full procrastination mode.

Here's the thing, for Baby Beef, I had to work from a dishcloth pattern and modify it so that it would turn out right. It involved effort. I couldn't just look at an already there pattern, I had to make it up and it was hard and it required brain power. But, once I figured out what I was doing, I sat down and just DID IT.

For this next blanket, I've committed myself in a much larger way. The blanket is for one of my best girlfriends. I was there when she and her husband met and I thought "wouldn't it be nice to tell their story on the blanket?" And with that thought, my brain stuck to the idea like glue. Yes there are million "already there" beautiful blanket patterns, but I really want to do my idea. Using dishcloth designs, each square represents something significant about their life together.

Everything started coming together really nicely when the SUPER AWESOME Lisa, of Digknitty Designs responded to a small question on Ravelry by offering to really help me out. I decided to use all of her patterns for consistency, especially after she offerred to alter one of her designs to accomodate my needs and design FROM THE GROUND UP, a special request. She didn't have to help me nearly as much as she did... but she did and for that she will always be awesome in my books. (I will also be pimping her site here during the duration of this blanket- so PLEASE, go order something from her. She has a million designs, and I'm not sure if I mentioned this, but she's AWESOME!)

But now I'm in the planning stages and there are so many reasons why I keep telling myself that I'm not getting this blanket done.

1) I hate the yellow I ordered. HATE IT. I have changed my mind and decided to knit the blanket in blue and off white only. EXCEPT, that I ordered yarn with a whole blanket in mind and now I'm pretty sure I'm not going to have enough of either color to finish. That's not a big deal, I can call Knitpicks and place another order, but there's no guarentee on dyelots and I can't get more off-white until Dec 18.

2) The baby was born yesterday. (I can't even comment on the level of guilt I'm experiencing over not having a baby blanket for one of my BEST FRIENDS. I am a terrible person.) It's a girl. YAY... except that I was knitting blue and white. The baby room is blue too. If I'm making a knitpicks order anyways, should I just change gears mid go here and order pink?

3) Lisa's patterns are awesome. But they are designed for dishclothes and I am one of the most anal retentive people alive. I am rewriting every one of them, so that they are all the same size. This involves going through every pattern, re-writing it and adding or subtracting (or both at the same time) stitches to make every square, well, square. It's tedious, time consuming work and I just want to knit, not think.

I've had more than one instance where it dawns on me that what I've done is wrong, and had to throw out the entire set up and begin again.

4) I do have the cast on number, and 10 rows of the border knit, but the minute I'm done the border I have to commit to how I want the "story" laid out. And I can't make up my mind at all!

5) I told myself that my father-in-law would disown me if I didn't get him his mittens. (NOT TRUE- I wanted any excuse I could find to knit with the soft alpaca.) And so, instead of working on this pattern earlier, I finished a pair of lovely mittens for him in the SUPER lovely alpaca yarn.

Pattern: Cruiser by Cailyn Meyer

Yarn: Jubilee Alpaca from the Wool Emporium in Saskatoon
Needles: US 5 & US6
Notes: LOVED the yarn. ADORED the yarn. Have maybe thought about rolling around in the yarn more than once. I liked the pattern too- a great easy knit, although ABSOLUTELY would knit a thumb gusset instead of doing the afterthought thumb. A gusset would have 100% satisfied me.

Father in law seemed to like them a fair bit, and so at least that's one issue off my conscience.

So now, I find myself running out of procrastination excuses. The baby is HERE, the patterns are purchased and half written out, I won't allow myself to cast on ANYTHING else until I make some progress on the blanket- so really that just leaves me to actually KNIT THIS BLANKET. Except that I don't want to.

My Tuesday knitting lunch crew, (Anne & Mel) and I have been jokingly calling this next blanket my "Magnum Opus"- because it's such an undertaking. For me, I haven't even started knitting it and I'm already struggling with my desire to knit it.

That's where all of you come in. I need you to hold me to this- I need you to ask me about this blanket... OFTEN. I need you to suggest finishing techniques, and ideas to help combat procrastination. I need to finish this blanket, and I'm hoping that you, dear reader, can help carry me there. We can get through this together- hang on tight!

Where's the Beef?

It's the moment we've all been waiting for! Beef is FINISHED! (I'll give you this moment to throw confetti in the air, pop a bottle of bubbly and hug your closest relative, preferably a knitter.) It's off the needles, and after some soul searching I decided it was okay with out any additional corrections made to the center.

Pattern: Modified Hay, Baby! Cloth by Elaine Fitzpatrick and my own chart for "Li'l Beef with Star" for the center square

Yarn: Knit Picks Comfy Sport (10 balls) in Ivory

Needles: US size 5

Notes: By keeping the color simple, this turned out simply lovely, and after some careful blocking the little beef faces really "popped" off the blanket. The only disappointment I have is that the center square didn't turn out as I had hoped.

You can tell what it says ("Li'l Beef") if you look at it long enough and in the right light, but I wish I would have just done a stocking stitch center and top stitched over it after. Oh well. I hope the parents will forgive me and focus on Ms. Fitzpatrick's cute little cows!

What I did do right- was the picot crocheted border. Yes. I just used "right" and the "C" word in the same sentence. Check out this EXTREME CROCHET CLOSE UP! (Sensitive knitters may want to look away...)

After picoting the pink sweater last year, this crochet thing might have rubbed off on me because I was quite pleased with the finish on this blanket... even if Crochet is the craft of the devil.

It feels so good to have this blanket off my plate, I'm actually ready to start thinking about the last and final blanket of the year. (Which I swear to myself and my readers that I will do everything in my power to finish before 2010.) I've even started to put together the idea and the story for what I'm doing. You'll be hearing a lot more of that in the future though, so I won't discuss it now.

In the mean time I've been biding my time with small projects... I even finished up one of the purse socks and have started #2! {new record?} (My office can't seem to capture the color right, they look so dark here, but alas... it's this lighting or nothing!)

And hats! In counting my documented hats on Ravelry today, I realized that I have shorted myself in hats on this blog. I should have shown 41 done prior to this blog post- and now I've got FIVE more to make it 46 hats done. I'm actually on track and where I should be for the 52 hat goal! Go ME!

To celebrate all of this progress I did the one thing I've been dying to do. I cast on the Cruiser mittens for my father-in-law with some of that dreamy alpaca I bought the last time I was in Saskatoon.

The mitten knitting is glorious, (just as I remember), but this yarn... there are not adequate adjectives to tell you how much I love this yarn. I LOVE THIS YARN! It's so soft and dreamy to knit with. There seems to be a little oil left from the processing, just barely any at all, but it's making my hands so soft while I knit with it. I LOVE THIS YARN! The next person making a trip to Saskatoon may have to bring me more. There are so many things I want to make with this stuff. Did I mention that I LOVE THIS YARN!? Because I do. I love it with my whole heart and soul. I love it enough that my husband should be mildly jealous. I wonder how he'd feel if I started cuddling up to the second skein instead of him? Hmmm....

While I ponder what to do with the second skein of this wonder fiber- I think I'll got back to knitting the mitten and enjoying the first. I can't decide if I'll be happy or sad when I knit this stuff up.... stay tuned I guess.

That's A Whole Lotta Yarn!

Faithful readers and those looking to keep me honest will note that recently my "Days gone without buying yarn" haven't been getting very high. In fact, it seems recently I've gone on a bit of a yarn bender.

We were in New York this last weekend and part of my pre-New York preparations involved making a WEBS yarn order. I love WEBS. I love ordering from WEBS. I hate paying shipping charges from WEBS to Canada. SO- when the opportunity presents itself, I decided to take advantage of really great shipping costs and ordered up some yarn.

First up I bought yarn for my "Mystery Stampede Project". A little "Shepherd Baby 3 Ply Wool" in this lovely color of "Baby Pink".

But I couldn't just stop there, not when I've been longing to make this sweater FOREVER. Say hello to my new friends "Valley Yarns Berkshire Bulky" in Grey!

I'm actually quite proud of the restraint I showed when faced with the selection and awesome prices of WEBS! I could have done a LOT more damage.

I didnt stop there- although I will admit that this next purchase was more out of necessity than stash vanity. Here we have the yarn to knit up the last blanket of the "YEAR OF THE BLANKET" in Knit Picks Comfy Worsted in Marlin, Creme Brulee and Ivory. (Creme Brulee is a little disappointing color wise, I hope I can make it work with the rest of the blanket.)

I've made room in the stash boxes and told myself that I will be busting this out by the end of next year. What I love about new stash is that it represents new beginnings. This yarn has the potential to be so many pretty things, and I can't wait to show them off in 2010.

PS: For those of you wondering about the status of Beef, it's done. I'm just waiting for a day when I have the right sunlight to photograph it and that's been a challenge. I'm hoping this weekend I can give it a proper photo session and can show it off to you all very soon!

PPS: Since the time change, I've lost daylight hours to take photos at home- brace yourselves, I'm going to be taking a lot of project/stash photos at work while I can still maximize the sunlight that I get in my office. The light is right- the setting is less than desireable. Bare with me!

PPPS: Hey co-workers! YES, I'm taking picturesof yarn in my office. YES, I appreciate that this is a little odd to you. NO, I'm not going to stop and quite frankly, for the amount of time it would take to explain why I'm taking photos of yarn in my office, it's probably best not to ask. Let's just all pretend that seeing my photograph yarn in my office is very, very normal.

PPPPS: I knit 6 more hats. I'm almost back on target again!