Thank you, Secret Pal!

What an awesome package! Check out the catwoman card - meow! Then there's the latest Knit It magazine, which I stayed up late last night oggling over. (Don't tell my Knitting Olympics project, but I cast on for the hat on p. 90. I know, I know. I was weak.) And what about the chocolate! CHOCOLATE! Yay! I love the dark green rectangular plate and little soy sauce bowl. Sushi, anyone? It's taking all the discipline I can muster to keep from diving into the fair isle hat kit on the right. I did do a meet and greet with the yarns though. They're Norwegian and very pleasant. I hope they don't mind waiting for me to cross the finish line with the ribbed sweater. So thank you Thank You THANK YOU to my lovely secret pal!

The Olympic sweater is progressing, though at 361 stitches across currently (it's knit in one piece, so that's from sleeve cuff to sleeve cuff), you can see why progress is slow. I am only at the halfway point now, with just five days left. I'm pretty sure I'm not going to finish in time *sigh* but I will finish - eventually...

Olympics: Days 1 and 2

Here are my constant companions for the duration of the games:


Project: Ribbed Sweater
Yarn: Debbie Bliss Wool Cotton
Color: 201
Needles: Addi Turbo 40" circular
Sizes: 0/2.0mm (edges) and 1/2.5mm (body) (It sucks being a loose knitter!)

Progress:


The olympic sweater is at 5.5 inches so far. I've used up just about one ball of yarn. We got about 8 inches of snow last night, so here's the sweater admiring the scenery.

Oh oh oh look at this!!!

A Valentine prezzie from Bethiee! I've eaten almost all of it...you know, to keep my strength up for endurance knitting...and if you buy that, I've got a bridge to sell you - cheap!

Baby Steps

The blue baby sweater has a collar and buttons:


It just needs to be blocked. The pattern was a little vague on the neck/button band. It went something like "pick up approx. 120 stitches, knit, make button holes and bind off." Does that mean garter stitch?? Do the holes go right up to the cast off edge?? I wasn't really sure, but the photo looked like the band was in rib, so I guessed rib and sort of improvised. I really should have picked up more stitches, since 1x1 rib makes such a compact fabric. Oh well..it's a little sloppy-looking, but good enough.

Still no head on the rabbit, but I've started the brim for the Kersti Hat. And I've also started another baby pullover, only this time one size larger (3-6 months) and with crazy bright yarn. I've got the front and back going at the same time:


I found some matching sparkly buttons at Michaels, which I can't wait to sew on. Yay, sparkles!

And now, to prove my decent into lunacy, I've joined the Knitting Olympics. I will try to make a ribbed sweater in 16 days. I've never made an adult-sized sweater before, let alone with any time pressure, hence the Olympic-nature of this feat, at least for me. I've decided to knit for the beleaguered (and imaginary) nation of Petoria. I would have knit for the Grand Duchy of Robonia, in honor of the spunky fembot Coilette:

but sadly they only take machine knitters :)

Hooray, Koigu! I won a contest on Bethiee's blog and got this wonderful parcel yesterday. It's a skein of beautiful green Koigu KPPPM, pretty purple and green stitch markers made by Bethiee and Peacock, a tiny photo album and a doggie card (it is the Year of the Dog, after all). What great prizes! Thanks a bunch, Bethiee!

To further feed my Koigu cravings, I received some Kersti that I bought from ebay:


Don't know what to do with it quite yet, but I really like the color and will probably just gaze at it adoringly for a bit.

And also in the stash expansion catagory, I stumbled onto a yarn store in Virginia and got some Lamb's Pride for a present for my SP7 spoilee (I will send it for her last package, so this should not ruin the surprise):


Mom and I were at the Sugarloaf Craft Festival at the Dulles Expo Center on Saturday. There was so much cool stuff, but sadly a lot of it was too pricey for me. Hence the consolation yarn shopping at Capital Yarns. It's a nice store, with a very helpful staff. Now, if only it wasn't an hour and a half away. *sigh*.

Now, my own Secret Pal is also up to something. She even sent me a pretty card that said as much! The funny thing is that my address on the envelope has a middle name that's not my middle name.....hmmm, a clue? (Yes, I can be quite dense sometimes)

I haven't made much progress on my very many works-in-progress. The toy rabbit is still headless and my Koigu hat is still brimless, because lately I've spent most of my knitting time on a little cardi, which now just needs a collar and some finishing:


I'll close with a distinguished doggie picture (again, for the lunar new year):

Don't let the pose fool you - he couldn't wait to get out of that coat. I think it makes him look like Sherlock Holmes...you know, if Sherlock were a dog...