More yarny pictures!

Aah! I'm finally blogging again! I come in peace, with pictures in tow.

Okay. So I've gotten more work done on the scarf and hat; I don't have any new pictures of the scarf, since it essentially looks the same except longer, but here's my hat so far:



The brim is done and it's [mostly] stockinette stitch from here on out, so I'm speeding right along now. Oh, and I attempted a shot of how I clipped stitches together (see #2 in this link):



It's hard to tell how it works since I'm pretty far along, and the lighting sucked. But at least I tried.

And then I decided to frog that bag I started making long ago. Here's a reminder:



It's knit on the bias, so I decided to knit a scarf in the same fashion.



I love knitting complicated patterns, but at the same time, it's quite relaxing to be able to mindlessly knit. Not to mention that I enjoy using needles that actually fit my hands (size 13). This'll go into my things-to-sell pile.

The chilly weather lately has been making me wish I had gloves to wear while at the train station in the morning. I tracked down a picture of the Fetching gloves I started once upon a time:



The glove in the pic didn't work out, though; I mainly just took a picture for my old class blog to brag about something I'd kinda finished. I had a few issues with the pattern:

• I tried making the thumbhole larger, since I have gigantic toe-thumbs and figured the pattern would be written for normal-sized thumbs, but the adjustment was actually too much.
  
• I wished the gloves were a little longer in the hand, fingers, and thumb (and, if I remember correctly, a little at the wrist, too).
  
• I ignored the picot bind-off instructions in the pattern, and just did a regular bind-off instead. It was too tight. Lesson learned.

I completely remade that glove - adding a few rows where necessary, making the thumb the size written, and taking the picot bind-off into account - and it fits a lot happier now. The second half is in the plans, and it should be much easier now that I actually own a cable needle.

I've also been eyeing the updated version of those gloves, Dashing, for several months now. So, I went shopping today and picked up some yarn (surprise):



The yarn on the left is for the bf - he saw it and loved the color (it's a forest green, which is probably hard to tell from the pic) - and the yarn on the right is for my own pair, as I've been eyeing that skein for a while now. I don't normally like pink, but occasionally I find something I love that I just have to have in pink. Like that skein.

I also bought five skeins of yarn. For a sweater. Woo!

See, I chatted with someone on the train a few nights ago, and she was wondering what kinds of things I knit. She asked if I knit sweaters, and I replied that I haven't yet, citing lack of money and ambition. On my drive home, I rethought my answer. I have the ambition to take on complicated lace patterns, but I don't have the ambition for a sweater? That's crap! So, I settled on a pattern, picked out some substitute yarns (I don't know about you, but whatever type of yarn this is just isn't me - or, at least it isn't my idea of sweater yarn), then just had to decide on colors. I finally settled on this combo:



...which looks much better in person than I could capture on camera. I was hoping for a nice, soft green or blue shade - kinda like the one pictured in the pattern, but I couldn't find a decent color match between the two yarns. There was a cool brown color match, but I suddenly got the feeling it would look like poop, even though the yarn shade was called Chocolate. I do like this orangey shade, though. Orange is like pink for me: I don't wear many bright colors, so an occasional change to my wardrobe is welcomed.

And then I also picked up a #9 circular needle and a #D crochet needle. They'll be used.

Much knitting must be done now, though. More talky later.