I finally got my camera returned to me yesterday.  It’s been making me crazy not taking pictures of everything!

First of all, I have pictures of actual FOs to show you!

Pattern: Simple K2P2 hat that I found on a blog somewhere.

Yarn: Paton’s SWS in the denim colorway, 1.5 skeins.

Needles: US7 DPNs (I didn’t have a 16″ circ so I made the whole thing on dpns)

Notes: This hat took me way longer than it should have.  I blame it on a combo of large DPNs and going out of town in the middle of knitting, and possibly also the fact that I cast on 100 stitches (seems like a lot for hat, but this is ribbing)  The SWS wanted to ladder like mad, and while most of that blocked out you can still see a few spots.  Marc won’t mind though (this is a Christmas present for him – he left his hat at Skyline and lost it a few weeks ago.)  The SWS feels great in your hands while you knit with it – soft and silky, without a hint of roughness.  I recommend using blunt tipped bamboos for this yarn – I tried it on metal and hated it.  I’m still not sure that I like it – it splits with no effort at all, and I’m a bit worried about how it will wear.  It’s very soft but fuzzy, so I hope that doesn’t mean it will pill like crazy.  Overall though I’m really happy with this hat.  If I liked the other colorways better I would probably buy more of this yarn.

Pattern: Grandmother’s favorite washcloth

Yarn: Sugar and Cream in a sort of aqua/teal color (not gray like in the photo)

Needles: Knitpicks options size 7

Notes: I made this while we were in Cincy for Thanksgiving.  They go to bed rather early for me, so I sat in my room, listened to “This American Life” on my Ipod, and made this.  I’m making washcloths to give as Christmas presents to all the women on my list.  This one took about an hour and a half.  I increased to 36 stitches rather than the 44 called for in the pattern, because I wanted this one to be the same size as my other patterns.  I’m happy with the size.  I do not like knitting with the washcloth cotton, but since these are small it isn’t too painful.

And finally, I’ve started another big project after being “projectless” since the completion of the Hourglass sweater.

Everyone recognizes this, right?  It’s a Clapotis, made in Southwest Trading Company’s Karaoke in the Mermaid mix color.  I love, love, love this color and this yarn.  The color changes are so subtle, and maybe a little bit longer than noro, and the yarn is so soft!  It’s what I wanted the SWS to be.  I think I’m quickly becoming a huge fan of soy yarns – I’m even considering doing my Lady Eleanor in Rowan Tapestry, since I love the sheen and subtle colors.

While we were in Cincy I dragged Marc to a LYS, and he bought me four knitting magazines on clearance – Vogue Holiday 03 and summer 04, Interweave Fall 05 and a Knit.1.  Because of this my list of things to knit grows ever longer.  I didn’t really love the store we went to – it was heavy on the novelty yarn and had no sock yarn to speak of, sad since I really wanted to buy sock yarn as a souvenir of our trip.  It was 5 times the size of my LYS and had nicer places to sit and knit, but I still like mine better.

The holidays have arrived here.  Feast your eyes on my lone piece of decoration.

It’s sad, right?  We don’t have room for a tree, especially not now.  My lease on my old place is finally up at the end of December, so we’re in the process of moving the rest of my stuff in.  It’s becoming rapidly apparent that we need more space.  I can store a lot of things at my Dad’s, but I really hate to do that.  I moved the rest of my (mostly unworn) clothes, and because of that we’re going to go to Target tonight and look to buy an inexpensive second dresser.  My old place had giant closets, while this place has 3 in the entire house and they’re tiny.  My closet has double rods, which is nice, but they’re full now.  I’m totally OCD about things setting out, and we currently have clothes on every available surface.  It’s making me crazy.  I can’t even really store the out of season things because there’s nowhere to put them!  I am going through my things looking for items for the upscale consignment store.  I’m pretty sure I can make back the cost of the dresser.  I have a sad amount of clothes, especially since I found the good local thrifts.   I do not suffer from an inability to purge things though.  I hate having too much “stuff.”