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Dang! It's been a little while. I'm not always the greatest blogger.
I've been working on a bunch of related things in my blog-absence, though, so I'll split this into three categories: stuff, stash, and sites.


Stuff

For starters, it's beginning to look a lot like Knuck-mas:



Forgive my lame attempt at a song. I'm not planning on these for Christmas presents, anyway. I'm just hopped up on my first cappuccino in months (seriously, it's been that long.)

Anyway, these are an incredible pain! The pattern, at times, call for all the stitches to be placed on two needles. Anyone who's knit in the round knows that's nearly impossible to begin with - but then when you're asked to do K2tog's and ssk's at the same time? Holy crap. It might be easier if I had a set of five needles instead of four, like the pattern calls for. I'm really hoping I can get the pair done by Sunday, so I have a warm pair of gloves to wear at the train station before work, but I'm kinda thinking that won't happen. I may have some time at the bf's family dinner on Saturday, but I still need to finish packing and, y'know, move.

In other news, I restarted my Marigold hat. I thought I had previously posted a picture of at least the two yarns on here, but I guess not. So, one skein of Cascade Heathers in 2446 (scroll down about 2/3 of the way to see it) and one skein of Symphony in Mystic Purple (even though the picture looks almost nothing like the actual shade). Once upon a time, I had 3/4 of this hat done, but I kept screwing up the lace pattern somehow, so I would keep finding one less or one extra stitch in some of the repeats. I don't know if I was dropping stitches or forgetting to do yarn overs or what. But, once I found a repeat that was short two stitches, I was done - unraveled the whole thing and put it off for a while. I didn't want to discover later on that there were a ton of dropped stitches, because that would suck. Quite a bit, in fact.

But, anyway, I restarted it. I'm not far enough in for the lace pattern to really be visible yet, but at least you can see the colors:



Mmm. Pretty.

And, I already screwed up! Majorly! I did a [k2 p2] rib instead of a [k1 p1]. Yeah. Big difference in appearance. That's what I get for paying more attention to a movie than a pattern, I guess. Luckily, I remembered the way to reverse stitches, and I had a crochet hook with me. Unfortunately, I was five rows in at the time, and had to fix exactly half of the stitches, which meant 265 of the little jerks. It's all better now though.


Stash

I bought things. For cheap!



Walmart clearance bins. You can clearly see the savings. I don't know what I'll use this for yet - probably sweater trim or something - but it was too pretty to pass up.



Dollar store. Incredible and Trellis. Normally retails for $6 or so each. In other words, $12 will normally fetch two skeins. I got twelve skeins for that much. I've never knit with ribbon yarns before, so I might as well give it a shot, for that price. Look at my color combos! I'm so making scarves.

I also stopped by Joann's. I haven't been to one since I really started getting into knitting, so I figured I'd stop to see what their selection was like. Overall, I wasn't thrilled, although I did see a sock needle set - a pack of needles in sizes 000, 00, 0, and 1 - that I might need to get sometime. And some really cool yarn that came with no visible price tag. (Edit: Good thing I went back and tested that link, because Joann's apparently forgets your session and deletes your link. Rrr. So, go to the Joann's home page, search for "sensations angel hair," and choose the one that's not boucle.) I sometimes wish the internet had feel-o-vision so you could feel how soft. And I have a project in mind! Which brings us to the next section...


Sites

What started my web crawl: Knitting Pattern Central. Because I was told they had a pattern for a knitted Dalek. I totally need to make that.

From there, I also stumbled on a bunch of other sweet sites. Like the Anticraft. Holy awesome. Lookit: a hat, wire knitting, monster glasses, creepy gardening, and a tampon-holding robot. Okay, those last three have almost nothing to do with knitting, but still. I need them. I think I'm going to make a cat grass garden with a leg sticking out.

The mass pattern site also had a link for a Clapotis hat, which is based on the scarf/wrap of the same name. I need that the most! Hence the previously mentioned soft pretty yarn. Yes. Go back to the Joann's site, look at the pink/grey shade, and tell me that doesn't rock.

I also did some searching after seeing a cat with a Jayne Cobb hat. Voila, a pattern!


In completely unrelated news, we did a final check on our apartment today, and it rocks. New carpet, new fridge, new tub... yay! And I scored an interview for a job I actually feel qualified (and therefore comfortable) for. Rock on. The move is on Saturday, though, so I'll try my best to get some posting (and knitting) done in the coming week. You're cool if you read everything to this point. *cookies* And now I'm off to attempt making my own ringtone of the Fruity Oaty Bar song.