Yarn Along

Okay, after a week off I'm back to joining Ginny of Small Things in her yarn-along.  The past two weeks have been just crazy with sending out our Four Season Exchange items (more on that in another post) preparations for Midsummer, and making a rather involved doll as a gift and celebrating our third wedding anniversary yesterday.  Not sure why those special events in our house always seem to pile up on each other like that but it always seems to be the way of things around here.

In any case, I have not gotten much reading done around here for a while except for books I consulted preparing for Midsummer.

I need to get back to Wuthering Heights.  I just renewed it from the library so hopefully I'll get some good reading time in this week.  My other book perusals have been some knitting books from the library as I am starting to make my list of gifts to make for Christmas.  I've found some inspiration in Knitted Gifts: Irresistible Projects to Make & Give and Son of Stitch 'N Bitch:45 Projects to knit and crochet for MEN.  I found an idea or two in each that I am going to work on.  I have a post about planning Christmas gifts in the works too.

In terms of knitting, I've made some progress on all of my knitting. I did  a lot of knitting on our vacation and finished the first of W's socks except to Kitchener stitch the toe together (needed to look up the directions on that one again) but now that I am home and have my directions I can not seem to find that project bag anywhere. I'm going to have to check the husband's car again to make sure it didn't get left in there somehow after our trip.

I have two new projects to share with you today.  I know, I know, I wasn't going to cast on anything else till I got some projects off of the needles, but having one lost sock that is nearly finished counts right?  The first project, actually is not new, but I've not shared it before.  It is a large shawl in a worsted weight yarn that I have been playing with (not really using a specific pattern) to try some different techniques out.  It has gotten pretty big and I'm thinking  it will only get a few more rows before I cast it off the needles.  I'm looking forward to wearing this in the fall and winter this year.  I love this purple yarn (finally something that's not blue or green)!

The other project I started is a hoodie sweater for W that I have been planning for a while.  The pattern is a freebie from the craft store designed for that acrylic lion brand homespun that I remember knitting with a lot when I first picked up needles years ago.  Now, there is no way I would knit with that, but I found some light blue bulky weight wool (just a shade lighter than W's eyes) to make it out of.  I think it should be a pretty quick knit and I'm going to give it to W either for his birthday in November or for Christmas since it seems like it will be a pretty warm sweater.  Considering I just started the back of it and I haven't had a huge amount of knitting time in the past few days I'm happy with the progress.

W wants to share a book suggestion again this week too.  We have been reading Cat Goes Fiddle- I -Fee almost every day at nap time recently.  It has such a great rhythm and repetition of the animal sounds.  W likes to recite it along with me as I read it.