We went to Lettuce Knit today! It was so so cute and I loved the whole Kensington neighborhood. There were so many cool-looking shops and restaurants and I'd like to spend a lot more time down there someday.

Making a purchasing decision at Lettuce Knit was damn near impossible but eventually I settled on some big dark red wool, which will likely become the Thorpe hat (I have some brown yarn at home for the trim). I still don't have my camera cord but I just did realize that Linn's computer has Photobooth, which is quite novel to me, so I can show you the yarn after all:



Linn just called to say she's on her way back here, so maybe it's time to stop using her computer for silly yarn photos. Hope you all have an excellent weekend!

Gratitude + food = a pretty good holiday.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

My Thanksgiving dinner was just me & Linn at the very swanky 7 West Cafe, where I had pasta primavera, garlic bread, and some crazy blue raspberry martini and we split an amazing dark chocolate cake for dessert (I also had some of Linn's raspberry amaretto tea, which was delicious). I may be in the minority here, but to me that is at least 80,000 times better than traditional Thanksgiving fare (except maybe pumpkin pie). Linn's company also could not be beat, though of course having a holiday without family is a bit strange. Christmas is definitely soon enough, though!

Tomorrow we're going to Lettuce Knit and I can hardly wait! (Were I at home I'd be participating in Buy Nothing Day, but this is the best time for us to go and Black Friday isn't even that big here, so...it kind of doesn't count, right? Right. Oh, actually the website lists "international" BND as Saturday, so I guess it really doesn't count. Sweet.)

Splendid Saturday.

Today was pretty much fantastic. Here's some of what happened:

• I tried to go to yoga at the Lab but horrible construction doubled my driving time and I didn't make it in time. That was a pretty big disappointment but I couldn't stay upset for too long. For one thing, I got to hear the last half of Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me! and the first part of This American Life in the car, both of which had me laughing so hard I probably looked a little nuts to other drivers. (I can't wait to go stream the whole episode of TAM as soon as I'm done writing this.)


• At Eastern Market I drank hot spiced cider, ate roasted chestnuts, and got lots of tasty things. Since I'm leaving for Toronto on Wednesday (!!) I really didn't need too much, but it's always fun to look around.


• My friend Nick called while I was at Eastern Market and wound up coming downtown to meet me. We had no concrete plans, but a glance in the general direction of Campus Martius convinced me that ice skating was absolutely necessary. Eventually I talked him into it and we had SO MUCH FUN!! Well, ok, actually we were extremely awkward and sort of clung to the rail while small children zoomed past us at alarming speeds, but after a while we started to get the hang of it. Neither of us fell, anyway!


• We wrapped up our downtown adventures with hot cocoa at the Cass Cafe and a visit to the Science Center, which was pretty cool.


• Back at home I made a half batch of cornmeal crunch, using some local organic cornmeal from Eastern Market -- the farmer selling it assured me it'd been ground just this morning! I replaced the onions with leeks (mmmm, leeks) and I really like the way it turned out.

So maybe I didn't get through all the homework I meant to, but that's what tomorrow's for, right? For now I think it's time to go work on a hat & listen to some excellent radio. I hope you all had wonderful Saturdays, too!

NOT DEAD! (+ my first pair of socks!)

Hi, blog, remember me? No? That's ok, it's been a million years and I don't really have a very good excuse. I know there were final exams in there somewhere, & then my wonderful friend Linn visited for a week, but really I could've taken the time to put up a post or two even in the middle of those things.

Sorry. I'll be better from here on out, I promise!*

The upside of me having abandoned you for nearly a whole month is that now I have lots of cool things to show you. I won't cram them all into one post, but for now I will show you my completed pair of socks:

Aren't they lovely? I finished the second one while my friend Linn was visiting from Toronto. We took a trip down to Illinois to visit my beloved Aunt Deb while she was here, & on the way we knit & knit & knit. Here's the trippiest sock-in-progress photo you ever will see, taken in Chicago's famous "bean" sculpture:


And here we are knitting in Millennium Park:


A busload of senior citizens happened to arrive while we were doing that, and of course many of the women told us how happy they were to see us knitting, and one old man asked to take that picture. Cute! (Yes, Linn is borrowing a Calorimetry I made.)

When I finally did finish that sock, it might've attacked Linn:

Ahahahaha! Best sock photo EVER!

You can see the rest of the pictures from Linn's visit here.

So, I think S. succeeded in her mission & got me a little bit addicted to sock-knitting. There will definitely be more in my future! For these I used the provisional cast-on, short row toe, & short row heel. I hated the provisional cast-on the first time around, but the second time I used a smoother cotton yarn for the crocheted part & found I didn't mind it at all. Also, the short row heel on my first sock is a little holey but on the second one I just picked up some stitches where the holes were threatening to form & it looks perfect. I definitely liked the toe-up method overall, but I am interested to learn some more toe & heel methods in the future!

Since then I've been working on a pair of legwarmers adapted from a sock pattern -- more on those soon. Cherie Amour is on hiatus still, but yesterday I finally picked the Cloud Bolero back up. It had been lying neglected & untouched for longer than this blog had, if you can believe that. Now I'm in the middle of binding off the body (woohoo!) & I need to hurry up & decide what I want to do about sleeves. The original pattern doesn't really have any & I keep waffling on whether I want to stick with that or not, and then of course if I am going to do sleeves I need to figure out how I want to approach them. Hmmm...

Anyway, I promise it won't be a month until next time!


* Maybe.

Gorgeous Yarn!

So I finished my Montana Scarf over the weekend but I don't have any good pictures of it yet -- I never seem to think of it until it's dark, and the few I've tried in the sunlight are just unacceptably crappy. I also can't show you pictures of the hat I knit for a friend over the weekend (not until I send it to him, anyway), and the Felted iPod Cozy I started yesterday is too boring to warrant photographing at this point (picture a green stockinette tube & you've got it). But I can make up for this lack of FO/WIP photos with some seriously beautiful yarn:




Are you drooling yet? That's 2 skeins of Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sport in Watercolor.




And this is 2 skeins of Claudia Hand-Painted Fingering Merino Wool in Caribbean Blue.
So, reason #230483240238 why you should join a knitting group in your area? Because if you say on your blog that you want to get started on socks, incredibly beautiful sock yarn might just come your way! Seriously, how lucky am I? The wonderful S. of Short N Crafty Sista read about my interest in socks & gathered up a whole bag of sock yarn that had green in it, since she needed to destash & doesn't care for green. I got to pick the two delicious yarns pictured above (an excruciatingly tough choice, by the way, since there were several other beautiful options), and everyone else got to take the rest. There aren't even any words for how grateful I am for this, but it definitely made my week!

I was up wayyyy too late last night trying to find suitable patterns for these. My first socks should probably be pretty simple, I figure, but I also want patterns worthy of these incredible yarns. I've pretty much ignored sock patterns up until now, so "overwhelmed" doesn't begin to cover how I feel looking through them now! There are so many! I'm starting to narrow it down, though, and hopefully I can start soon. I still need to get some of those tiny little sock needles, though -- I was going to run out & buy some today, but I think I might try to be patient and order some KnitPicks needles soon instead, since there are a few sizes I need for upcoming projects.

I did go yarn shopping over the weekend, too! I picked up some Berocco Peruvia in Maroon. (I almost went for green but I'm trying to branch out colorwise.) I'm using it on my aran weight version of Ysolda Teague's Cloud Bolero (Ravelry link). I am insanely nervous about this pattern, since I've never really done lace before, and I fully expect to make 10,000 stupid mistakes and have to restart it more than once. So far, though, it's going decently (knock on wood). I started it last night and have only moved through 10 or so rows, but it looks impressively lacy & lovely and I'm very excited about it!

Twin Calorimetries & Cookie #5.

Hi everyone! Sorry for being so quiet lately. It's been an insanely busy week. I was battling a sinus infection, helping out at my aunt's flower shop, and doing lots of school work. Now I'm feeling better, done with the flower shop until Mother's Day, and wishing I could spend the weekend kicking back & relaxing with some good knitting. Unfortunately, that's not going to happen. I have midterms next week & therefore tons of reading/studying/writing/etc. to do, plus I'm leaving for Montana Thursday (yay!) so there are things I want to get out of the way before then. Blah.

I've barely knit at all since completing that hat, though I did take a trip to an LYS just the other day, in search of yarn for a nice neck-warmer. I left with a nice big skein of Araucania Nature Wool. It's very pretty but it's also much thinner than I'd realized at the time, almost more of a heavy DK than a light worsted, and I'd wanted a heavy worsted. Oops. So I don't know what I'm going to do about that. I did find a pattern I liked written for 2 strands of DK held together, so I might use that. I might also just go buy different yarn over the weekend, we'll see.

The cardigan is moving slowly. Well, really it's not moving at all, because I STILL haven't started the second sleeve. I don't know why, but I always convince myself that picking up stitches is some horrible ordeal that I just don't want to deal with yet. In reality it's an easy & quick thing to do, but I put it off anyway. I promise I'm starting that sleeve tonight, though!

I can finally show you the two Calorimetries I made last week, though, since my friend Kenna received hers the other day & seems to like it! :) Here's a picture of her wearing it:


I was so happy when she sent me that! It just feels really good to see something you made being used by the recipient. I'm sure you all know what I mean. Here are some other shots I took of it before sending it off:


The orange was my favorite color in there and I'm thrilled that I had a button that worked with it so well. Also this yarn makes me want to take back every mean thing I've ever said about multi-colored yarns because it's so damn beautiful, especially with this pattern!

As you know, as soon as I finished that one for Kenna I cast on this one for myself:


The lighting is all weird/cool because I took these as the evening sunlight was streaming in through my favorite window. I've been wearing it nearly every day & loving how warm it keeps my ears.

For both of these I cast on 96 stitches & only did 5 repeats of row 5. To get 2 out of just one skein, I had to cheat a little on mine & knit to 8 stitches past the marker on a couple of the last rows. I was nervous about that but it worked out fine.
***
I really need to finally blog Cookie #5, since it's been at least a week since I made it!

Recipe: Chai Snickerdoodles

Modifications: I don't think I made any other than halving the recipe because having that many cookies around didn't seem particularly wise.

Review: I was so excited when I saw this recipe! I love snickerdoodles & I love chai, so combining the two seemed brilliant. Basically it's a traditional snickerdoodle recipe, but instead of rolling the dough in a simple cinnamon-sugar mixture, you add cardamom, ginger, & allspice, too! I love those spices & had fun mixing them up & making the cookies, but the end result tasted almost exactly like a basic snickerdoodle to me. I'm not complaining, since there is nothing bad at all about a basic snickerdoodle, but I was mildly disappointed that the chai flavor wasn't very pronounced. There's a good chance I'll try these again & just use much more cardamom, ginger, & allspice -- if I do, I'll let you know how it goes!

Right now I've got a loaf of this in the oven and if it tastes half as good as it looks & smells right now I'll be in heaven. I keep making breads & not blogging them! Basically that oatmeal bread I gushed about a couple weeks ago is on its way to becoming a weekly staple. Everyone likes it and the few scraps that are left over at the end of the week become the most delicious croutons the world has ever known. I also tried making English muffins for the first time a while back, following this recipe. I was amazed by how good they were for a first attempt, but they still weren't perfect. They were bland and I also didn't roll the dough out thin enough at all. My family still liked them but I hope to do better next time. If nothing else it was satisfying to know that I made them out of a few simple ingredients while the ones from the store have an ingredient list that's about two inches long and filled with unpronounceable words.

Ok, that's all for now, have a great weekend everyone!

Cookie #2 & lots else.

Last night I finally got around to making cookie #2 of my 50 for the year. The delicious cookies my step-mom had brought over for my birthday were officially a week old, so it was time to throw out the remaining couple of them (couple of pieces of them, I should say -- believe me, they were too good for anything but a few odd chunks & crumbs to be left uneaten) and make a new batch. Coincidentally, I also happened upon a recipe for Peanut Butter Cup Cookies! You can guess what happened next.

Recipe: Peanut Butter Cup Cookies from Six One Seven.

Modifications: None were made intentionally, though I did have slightly less than 20 mini Reese's cups because there were only 20 in my package and...well, could you look at 20 mini Reese's cups without eating at least one of them? Yeah, that's what I thought. Also, I had to sprinkle a lot of water into the dough as I was trying to form it because it was much too dry and crumbly.

Review: It's hard to go wrong with Reese's cups! Still, I think I'd change a few things about this. Like I said, the dough was very crumbly & really difficult to form without adding lots of water. In my opinion, the resulting cookie is a little too crunchy. It's nice dipped in milk but I'd prefer something chewier and softer and will probably aim for that next time. Finally, if you're going to make these be sure to take them out of the oven when they're barely beginning to look done! I took mine out when I thought they still looked somewhat underdone and the bottoms taste a little burnt even though they're a very light brown. Strange but true. Despite my minor complaints, though, these make for a very satisfying cookie! I'll probably make them again, though like I said I might try changing up the recipe to make them a bit softer.

***
You might remember Marj kindly listing me at her blog just the other day, on her list of "10 people whose blogs bring you happiness and inspiration and make you feel happy about blogland." Now it's time for my list, though making it only 10 is a HUGE challenge! I'll try to stick only to crafty blogs to make it a bit easier on myself (though not too easy, because I have a whopping 46 blog subscriptions in my "crafty" folder on Google Reader). Here we go!

1. Yarn Harlot: Ok, this was an obvious one, but how could I not include her? If you've ever read her blog or one of her books, you'll know what I mean. She's roughly the funniest woman on the planet and I love seeing her creations.


2. Diane's Yarn Addiction: Diane may be slightly less well-known but I get excited whenever her blog's updated, too. :) She knits with me on our Tuesday Knit Nights (the ones I haven't been to in much too long!) and I'm amazed at all the great stuff she's constantly turning out.


3. Colorjoy!: I only found Lynn's blog a month or two ago but it's a particularly good one. Her knitting is very impressive but I mainly enjoy the thoughtfulness of her entries. The experience of reading her blog is really enhanced by the fact that she responds to blog comments with personal emails, giving you a chance to continue the conversation & interact in a way I really appreciate and haven't seen other bloggers do.


4. Peachcake Knits & Eats Gluten Free: I found Alex's blog a few months back because of her adorable patterns for cute little knitted fruits and quickly got hooked on following her posts. She's a very creative person and her baking, knitting, sewing, and other endeavors never fail to impress & inspire me. (The quilt she's working on right now is particularly awesome.)


5. My Knitting Island: Svetlana is amazing! I don't even understand how she does the things she does, churning out complicated sweaters & even dresses by the minute, often without a pattern. Go look, you won't regret it!


6. Hasbu's Hideaway: I only found Hasbu a few days ago, through Marj, but I loved looking through her blog & at her projects on Ravelry. I'm particularly enamored of her tweed skirt, which might be one of the most perfect knit skirts I've ever seen.


7. How About Orange?: This blogger doesn't knit, as far as I know, but she's a great designer who posts all kinds of cool & useful things, from printable greeting card templates to amazing cupcake recipes. I've found lots of good stuff through her posts.


8. Short & Crafty Sista: I love Sonya!! She's from Knit Night, too, and she's wonderful. You might want to check out her pink ribbon illusion scarf pattern, it's really cool.


9. Gluten-Free Girl: Ok, this one isn't crafty at all, but it won't get out of my head until I include it here. Shauna is probably the best blogger I've ever read, period. My interest in gluten-free eating/living is basically non-existent but I devour her posts nonetheless. Her enthusiasm about food and life is absolutely contagious, and if you can read through any of her very sweet entries about falling and staying in love with The Chef without crying...well, then you are not me. I'm getting her book as soon as I can, but for now she's honestly the best writer I've ever read online.


10. Knizzle fo Shizzle: Last but not least, Marj is amazing! I promise I'm not only listing her because she listed me, but because this list would be incomplete without her blog on it. Not only does the title crack me up every time, but her posts are often downright hilarious and her knitting extraordinary. Beyond all that, she's a really fun person to knit with, has helped me out kindly on some of my projects, and will probably be one of the main reasons for my eventual conversion to "the dark side," a.k.a. sock knitting.

Wow, that took ages! Sorry this is getting so long, but I had to say something about each of your wonderful blogs. Also don't feel left out if your name isn't on here -- it was tough to narrow down, but if I've ever so much as left you a comment you can safely assume I think your blog's the bee's knees. (And Aunt Andrea SOMEONE would surely be on this list if she would only ever update...)

***
In other news, I'm making lots of progress on my cardigan! That first sleeve took me something like 2 weeks, but they were distracted weeks where I wasn't even knitting on it regularly. I finished that sleeve Friday night & promised myself I'd pick up the pace. So far I'm sticking to that, and as of last night I'm halfway through the back. I'm hoping to make some more progress on it today and I'll definitely be sharing pictures soon. One thing that's helping a lot is the fact that I'm taking my first-ever online course this semester. It wasn't really my first choice, but a bunch of classes that I really wanted were canceled or full, I was somewhat curious about how online classes even work, and it would save me quite a bit of gas money & commuting time, so I went ahead & did it. So far it's not bad and the truly great thing is that I can knit while I listen to lectures!! I have to pause occasionally to take notes, of course, but it's the perfect thing for a miles-of-stockinette project like this cardigan. The lecture keeps me from getting too bored with the knitting, the knitting keeps me from getting too bored with the lecture, and by the time the hour's up I've learned something interesting and made knitting progress. Not bad!

This post has already reached novel length and there's more I could say, but I'll leave you with one last happy bit of news: I won a blog contest!! It was the first time ever and I absolutely cannot wait to find out what the prize will be! The contest was over at Hasbu's and you should stop by today and wish her a happy birthday.

Finally FO: Dashing!

Today was a sad day. My boyfriend Brian is heading back to Montana for the semester, so I hurried up and finished his very belated Christmas gift. It's something he'll use a lot there, hopefully to keep his hands warm while talking to me on the phone!


The thumbs are still mildly disastrous, but in a way I can live with. I think if/when I make these again I'll do a more traditional thumb gusset instead of this afterthought thing -- not only would I probably find that easier, but I saw pictures somewhere of Dashing done that way and I liked the look much better, too. The surprising part is how ridiculously WARM these keep you! I wore them around while waiting for Brian to show up this morning and they kept me much warmer than Fetching usually does. I think it's all that extra length. I might need to make myself a pair at some point, but for now I'm happy that Brian likes his so much. Here's a blurry shot of him modeling them somewhat reluctantly:

"Please don't put this on Facebook."
"Oh, this isn't for Facebook, it's for my knitting blog!"
*sigh*
With any luck I'll be visiting him out there next month. Accordingly, I am planning on knitting myself lots of warm woolly stuff! All I'm working on now is the cardigan, which feels strange. I thought my Ravelry was lying to me, but it's true: I only have one wip. This will not last, trust me.

In other news, I MISS KNIT NIGHT SO MUCH!! I haven't been in thousands of years, mainly due to car issues. I'm hoping I can make it out next Tuesday because I miss everyone like crazy. The good news, though, is that I don't have class on Tuesdays this semester, so I can come directly from home and maybe even bring my wonderful little sister along! I'm looking forward to that.

Speaking of my knit night pals, Marj left me a very kind present at her blog the other day. :) I'll be doing a similar list in my next post!

Finally, I have a somewhat stupid question about knitting books. Are they like other books, in that I can expect a paperback to come out someday if one is only out in hardcover now? Or do I have to suck it up and accept the expensive hardcover edition (and by "accept," I probably mean "check out from the library")? I'm just wondering because I came across some great ones last night but they were all hardcover & therefore like $30. :-\

I did get myself one crafty book, though: the Stitch & Bitch crochet book! Hopefully my beloved Aunt Andrea (a.k.a. the Crochet Crusader) will be proud of me. I'm still more or less counting on her to teach me, but maybe I can learn a few of the basics from the book. There are also a lot of really excellent patterns in there, so I'm glad I picked it up!

Christmas Wrap-Up.

Christmas was wonderful! Not only did I get to see my family & get some awesome presents myself (more on that in a minute), but my own handmade gifts went over extremely well. I've only given a few of them so far, actually. On Christmas morning I finished a necklace for my step-mom:


I was really nervous & unsure that she would like it, but she definitely loved it! She wore it for the rest of the day & showed it off to all our relatives. :)

My brother liked his hat, too, though it is a little shorter than I'd like. I didn't get a great picture of him in it, but here's a slightly blurry one of us together:


He wants one with ear flaps next.

Yesterday morning I gave my friend Nick his completed toy penguin. I meant to get a picture of him with it but I'll have to do that another time. I did have quite an extensive photo shoot with the presently unnamed penguin on my friend's bookshelf, though:


I'm so pleased with how it came out, guys!! It might be my favorite thing I've ever made, though that's partly due to Nick's reaction. I don't think he could've possibly loved it more or been more enthusiastic about it! All my friends really liked it, actually, and even my pal Jacob who usually teases me about knitting said, "That is awesome! I'm seriously proud that you made that -- I'm not even being sarcastic!" Haha.

Last of all, I gave my friend Sara the headband I made for her and she said it was just what she'd been needing. Perfect!

I still have some gifts left to give (...and finish), but I'm so happy that all of these went over so well! As for what I got...well, I was spoiled! My family is beyond good to me on Christmas, really. There were a few you might be interested in, too. My beloved Aunt Amy sent me a gift card to Knit A Round, my favorite LYS! It hasn't arrived yet, but when it does my Aunt Andrea & I will have to have a shopping spree, since she got one too. I also got Romantic Hand Knits by Annie Modesitt, which has some ridiculously beautiful patterns, and AlterNation. I only got one cookbook, but it's a huge and somewhat intimidating one: How to Cook Everything Vegetarian by Mark Bittman. Reviews of all of those will follow when I've actually read more & made some things from them, but I'm terribly excited about all three!

I hope you all had a spectacular Christmas, and I should be back to post some more very soon.

One gift (mostly) down, approximately 8 zillion to go!

Wow, have I really not posted since Tuesday?! Quite a bit has happened since then!

On Thursday, I finally checked out Neighborhood Knits. It's only a few minutes away from my school and I think it's good for both my bank account and my GPA that I didn't discover it until now. (This semester I had a nearly two-hour break on Thursdays, during which I usually caught up on reading & homework, but I'm sure I don't need to tell you that my desire to buy yarn could trump my desire to do either of those things any day.) Anyway, it was a lovely little shop with a good selection and everyone was very friendly, so I think I'll be going back quite a bit in the future. For now I have a gorgeous skein of Cascade 220 Heathers, with which I've started on my boyfriend's Xmas gift, Dashing. I meant to get a brown or green yarn but in the end I couldn't resist this kind of reddish orange-ish brownish gorgeousness. Ok, it's mostly reddish, but it reminds of foxes and autumn and other good things, and I'm pretty sure Brian will dig it, too, which is probably what matters most. As always, the photo doesn't quite do the color justice:


That's the first glove and it's grown significantly since that picture was taken yesterday afternoon. I am in love with this cable pattern, guys! For some reason I'm having real trouble doing it (yesterday was the first time I ever threw my knitting at the wall!) but it's coming out so beautifully that I don't care.

I knit a lot this weekend, and I'm making progress on all my gifts. Happily, I've just about finished the headband:

The ends still need to be sewn together (they're just safety-pinned there) but I might block it first. It looks fine on the head, but when it's off it rolls up like crazy. I wouldn't mind if it was just for me, but since it's for someone else I think I might put in the effort of blocking...maybe. Initially it actually was going to be for me, but over the course of knitting it I decided it needed to go to my friend Sara. For one thing, she looks far better in shades of red than I do, and for another she lives up in Marquette, where people really need warm winter stuff! (Not that we don't need it down here in the Lower Peninsula, too...) Also I think she'll appreciate a handmade gift and, well, she's one of my best friends in the world, so she deserves one too. :)

I'm a little embarrassed that it took me so long to finish such a simple project, but what can I say? I got bored with it & kept putting it aside. It happens.

Also, I'm finally coming to terms with the fact that I can't knit for everyone on my list in the amount of time left until Christmas, so I've come up with a nice alternative partly handmade gift that can fill that gap: embroidered stuff! I love embroidery & haven't done a new project in months, so I'm excited. Today I went out & got a few cheap, plain shirts. When my t-shirt stabilizer comes from Sublime Stitching I'll be able to go to town on them and hopefully make some really special and well-loved gifts.

I know lots of knitters complain about friends who don't appreciate all the effort that goes into handmade gifts, but I'm starting to fear I have the opposite problem. My friends are all the type who really love handmade stuff and I don't want any of them to be disappointed if I give them something that doesn't have a personal touch. Here's hoping I can get all those "personal touches" done in time!

Also, I'm SO relieved this week is just about over!

Hi everyone! This'll just be a quick post, since I'm itching to go actually knit, but here are a few knitting-related things:

• I started working on this pattern yesterday. I'm using this soft, beautiful mystery yarn from my stash -- I had it wound into a ball at the LYS, & when they do that they put the tag inside the ball. So when I run out I'll know what the hell the stuff is, but for now it could be anything. I do remember that my Aunt Andrea bought it for me, though, so it's gotta be something pretty nice. :)
  
  You can see the headband as of yesterday here. It's gotten much longer since then, and so far everyone who has commented on the photo thinks it looks like I'm knitting a thong...
  
  It's worth noting that I'm using this version of the pattern, which is super-easy to follow. I didn't even try to follow the original, since I've heard lots of terrible things about DROPS patterns.
  
  
• My first ever online order of yarn came today from KnitPicks! It's beautiful stuff.
  
  
• I have the best friends/enablers EVER. My friend Taryn asked me the other night which knitting magazines I like. She was trying to be all stealthy but it came out that she's getting me a gift subscription for Christmas, which is just too sweet of her! And as if that weren't enough, I also got a package from my friend Kenna, who is studying in Dublin for the semester. This was inside:
  
  
  
  
  It's wonderful! After much internal debate, I think it's destined to become a pair of these. Your thoughts?
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Not that long ago, I said I didn't believe in colorwork more complicated than stripes. But then I saw this bag pattern, and now I can't get it out of my head. I'm becoming obsessed with it to the point where I think it's safe to say I'll be attempting Fair Isle pretty soon...

Wow, that got longer than I thought it would! I suspect I could go on about knitting for way too long. On the baking front, I haven't done anything too interesting lately but I did make oatmeal chocolate chip cookies a couple days ago & the classmates I shared them with really loved them, so that was cool.

Have a good weekend everyone!