I planned to make a sweater for a friend as a Christmas gift and I never even cast on. Which is pretty pathetic, there wasn't even a pretense of getting it done in time. Anyway, I finally got around to it last week, and I'm really going to try to finish it before she visits me in late February. It's Lily from Twist Collective.

The yarn is from Knitting Notions and the color is gorgeous! Unfortunately, one of my skeins is clearly a different dye lot, but 1) what can I expect when I waited until she put the yarn on clearance, and 2) I might be able to squeak by without it because my friend is small. I used the oddball skein for the swatch, stitch gauge is spot-on with 3.75 mm needles but row gauge is a bit off (8 rows/in instead of 7 rows/in). Since my friend has a long torso anyway, I am trying to gently correct for my tighter row gauge as I go.

Also, knitting bobbles is a pain in the ass. But they're kinda cute. Reminds me of boys, actually.

Loot

Most of the last month I have been traveling, including going Home (with a capital H) for a week. Now that I'm back at home (with a little h), with a bad case of jetlag and a little bit of homesickness, I haven't felt like blogging. To make matters worse I'm having a hell of a time finding good opportunities to photograph stuff - the lighting in my room is total crap and I kinda have to work during daylight hours.

But, there were so many goodies waiting for me in my mom's mailbox. I'll show just a few.

The biggest thing I had ordered was the East Meets West bag kit from KnitPicks.

I also got a book to help me use up the leftover yarns and feed my newfound addiction to mittens:

I got a ton of sock yarn (most of it not shown), some more 2.0 mm circs (I like to knit socks using two circs), and another book about knitting socks:


I've been reading Wendy's blog for a couple years now and I'm looking forward to trying some of her patterns.


Before I dig into any of this stuff though, I have more pressing projects. First off, I really want to finish, or at least get close to finishing, this damn Cleopatra Wrap. I've definitely made progress while travelling:

Secondly I've got a sweater that I really want to finish by the end of February. Of course, I just cast on a few days ago, so it's not likely. But, I will give it the old college try and so the wrap is back to being train knitting until further notice.