An update finally.

So some sad news on the LYS front. Apparently there was smoke damage at the local LYS last week due to a boiler malfunction. This means this shop is closed right now, until repairs can be made. This is a total bummer for them, right in the middle of the holiday season and I can't imagine what that might have done to the yarn in the store. Is it salvageable? Washable? Who knows. Perhaps it could be sold at a discount for people willing to try to get the smoke out themselves. Or maybe they can fix it. I'll be interested to see what they do.

This also means I wasn't able to get my yarn wound up this weekend. That's probably for the best, since having pretty yarn cakes sitting about just tempt me into knitting them when I've already got enough projects going on and presents and requests to make.

So I took pictures of the yarn as is, just to have something to give to you guys. Also a few progress shots since I don't have anything finished right now.




(Manda called this the lemonade yarn. I agree with her.)


Manda so kindly got me this book as a present.


It has luxurious looking knits in it, like this one.


Her boyfriend called it a sexy knitting book (there's a chick modeling a scarf in her undies, he's not far off). The pictures are quiet lovely and the knits look really high end. Definite possibilities for future gifts when my skill sets improve some more.

Speaking of Manda.

I'm currently working on her Christmas present. Since she knows what she's getting and helped pick out the yarn, I'll go ahead and post the picture.


The pattern is fun to knit. I had a false start at first w/holy increases, but once I figured out the trick to invisible increases things started moving along quite well. This should go relatively quickly as far as scarves go, but I do have to keep picking up my socks to work on as the seed stitch gets a bit repetitive.

Speaking of socks...


This photo shows the detail a little better.



I'm currently working the heel of the first sock. When I can actually sit and knit these for awhile they work up pretty quickly and the pattern is easy to memorize. Unfortunately I didn't get as much knitting time as I would have liked this weekend so I don't have much progress to update on.

The holidays are starting to weigh down on me. Exams are coming up. Still loads of homework to do. Not to mention shopping and decorating and family stuff. I probably won't get to knit as many presents as I wanted (which isn't many at all). Kev's hat will probably be late. And the mittens I wanted to do...well see about those. May have to put the socks on hold and start actual present knitting instead. Or maybe just give the socks to somebody. (This isn't the time of year for selfish knitting.)

I need to manage my yarn projects better.

Can I gush for a moment?

I recently discovered the website the Loopy Ewe and instantly made a wishlist of all the yummy, gorgeous yarns I wanted to try. Friday was payday so I naturally decided to place an order for some Dream in Color Smooshy in Go Go Grassy. I got my yarn on MONDAY. AND they wound it into a cake for me at no charge. How awesome is that? They included a personal little note with my package and it was wrapped oh so carefully in tissue paper. The yarn is gorgeous. See, pictures!





I'm dying to knit with it already but I'm making myself finish the first pair of socks before jumping into something more complicated and ruining such a gorgeous yarn. I'm thinking Go Go Grassy will pair well with Sunday Swing Socks (it looks relatively simple for a beginner) or Spring Forward if I'm feeling adventurous.

I also picked up a skein of sock yarn at A Good Yarn this weekend while we were in Baltimore (watching the Red Sox kick a little Oriole ass). It's variegated and supposed to create a fair isle pattern when knit. It's in some sort of Mexican color way so I expect it will look like a fiesta on my feet!

I'm getting ahead of myself. I still haven't even finished my first sock yet. My god, socks are slow going. This is my progress so far. Just got to creating the heel flap. I had to rip out a few rows because the instructions were so totally wrong. It wasn't much work but it takes a long time to get a little way when knitting with such tiny yarn and needles!



But at least I am making progress!