Two sweaters, alike in dignity

(Still catching up on describing several months of blogless knitting.)

About two years ago, I bought a whole bunch of "Wool of the Andes" from Knit Picks in the "Hyacinth" colourway, in order to make Durrow by Jodi Green for my husband as a Christmas gift. The yarn came, I cast on, and I knitted really quite a bit of it:

The whole time I was knitting it, though, I was trying to convince myself that he wouldn't mind the colour. Do not get me wrong - I love the colour myself. It is a gorgeous, vibrant royal purplish-blue that I adore. But what I had been shooting for was a subdued, conservative purple, which is something I thought I could convince him - despite his surprisingly "it's a girly colour" aversion to purple - to wear. The Hyacinth, though...enh. Finally I accepted that it was just not a colour he would enjoy wearing, and decided to use something else instead.

And so, flash forward to December, I ordered some more Wool of the Andes, this time in the "Blackberry" colour. This time, I got the colour right. It's a dark eggplanty kind of purple, almost so dark you can't even tell it's purple. In January, I began work. I've since put it aside in favour of other projects, but I have gotten a fair bit done already, so my guilt is low, particularly since I think I'm going to turn it into next year's Christmas present.

Of course, this left me with a whole bunch of Hyacinth yarn that wasn't earmarked for anything. What could I use it for?

Back to Jodi Green again, of course...this time, for me. I cast on for the fabulous Mariah hooded cardi that's been in my queue for ages. I have a bad feeling I'm not going to have quite enough yarn for it, but we'll fall off that bridge when we come to it. (Worst case scenario, I could convert it into a hoodless cardi.) Again, good progress has been made - I'm almost done both sleeves - although it, too, has since been put aside.

New year, new reasons to panic

So let's see...in chronological order, here are the people that I might knit presents for this year...

• DH: wedding anniversary
  
• cousin: baby shower (no "might" about this one, though)
  
• DD2: birthday
  
• DD1: birthday
  
• DD3: birthday
  
• DH: birthday
  
• tons of people: Christmas
  

Plus, of course, I'm hoping that I will be getting some design acceptances, which will mean having to knit sample pieces and write up patterns. So with any luck, it will once again be a busy year.

I think, though, that might not be knitting for my wedding anniversary. It's going to be our twelfth, which - as I've just Googled - is the "silk" anniversary. So I think DH may be getting yarn. :) (Or maybe a silk shirt.) My LYS has also just announced that they're hoping to bring Koigu into the shop soon (!!!), so that will probably work as a nice birthday treat for him.

For their birthdays, DD1 and DD2 will probably get socks for their ever-growing feet. :) DD3 I'm not sure about, but I have been hankering to make the Whirligig Shrug for ages, so I might use her birthday as an excuse. :)

Last night I discovered a major flaw in my plans for my cousin's baby's gift, though. I was charting things in anticipation of the yarn showing up next week, and suddenly I realised that I had set myself up to do intarsia in the round, which is impossible. (Damn. Why can't I bend the laws of knitting physics?) Fortunately I figured this out before casting on, so I've been able to come up with an alternate construction solution which I think (HOPE) will work okay.

As for Christmas - urg. I'm going to once again try to do the Durrow sweater for DH, which will mean finding new yarn first.

For my dad, I'm planning to make socks out of this:

For my mom, I think the time has finally come to use the Handmaiden Sea Silk that I bought for her years ago:

I'll be using it to make the Maja shawl by Anniken Allis. The pattern requires more yardage than I have, but the notes say that it can easily be made smaller or larger. I might start that pretty soon, actually, to try and get a jump on the end-of-year knitting.

My brother, as I've mentioned before, is getting a scarf to match the hat he got this past Christmas. The BILs, though, I'm not sure about. I'd like to make them both sweaters (BIL#1 one of my own design which is coming out later this year, and BIL#2 Kilkenny by Lorraine Condotta), but that might be too ambitious, especially with multiple other big projects planned. So we'll see. I might just end up doing socks instead to save my sanity, and save the sweaters for another year.

For my niece, I'd like to make Good Tree Cardigan by Laura Brown. I was thinking it would be extra-cool to use glow-in-the-dark yarn for the contrast colour. :)

I've no idea what I'm going to knit my girls for Christmas, but I'm sure it'll come to me. (And knowing me, I'm sure it'll be ridiculously over-ambitious.) The various teachers and care providers in our lives will also, of course, get handknits, but what exactly they'll be remains to be seen.

So...a big year ahead.

Yeah. I think I should probably start my mom's gift right now. Excuse me...

Presents!

In good news, there have been progress and FOs.

I finished the pinafore dress for my aunt's niece's new baby:

Front:




Back:

It's really adorable and I love it. I think the best way to hand it off will be to do it in a way that sounds completely convoluted but which is actually really simple. You see, the baby's grandparents are coming to my aunt's house for a Christmas dinner (my aunt being the sister-in-law of the baby's grandfather), and my parents are also invited to this dinner. Therefore, I will give the gift to my mom to hand off to the grandparents, and it will thus be able to find its way to the parents, and therefore, the baby.

(I and my family would have been invited to this dinner, but my aunt knew we would be entertaining my husband's brothers on Christmas day, and so did not present us with an invitation we would have had to decline. Isn't holiday scheduling fun?)

As well, thirteen of fourteen holiday gifts are now complete, as I finished DD2's legwarmers:

Even better, they're now wrapped! DD2 mentioned to me today that she had noticed the new parcel underneath the tree, and I told her it was for her from me. Her eyes lit up with excitement and she thanked me for giving her a gift! It was so sweet. I hope the reaction when she actually opens the present is also that good.

All that's left to do in the way of holiday knitting is DD3's cardigan. (I have decided, after all, to axe DH's Durrow sweater project and do it again - hopefully next year - with a less vibrantly-coloured yarn.)

This past week also saw the arrival of some yarn support. With the holiday knitting almost done, I couldn't resist casting on for the pattern. It's going really well and I love it and can't wait to share. (Although I strongly suspect I will have to rip the whole thing out eventually and do the borders with a smaller needle size. But we shall see.)

And finally, the new Knitty came out. It's got some very nice things in there, but the one I couldn't resist was the Nennir cowl. It's getting colder, and a cowl would be great to have, and I just bought some gorgeous dark turquoise sparkly fingering weight yarn from Knit Picks, and the cables on this cowl were really beautiful, and I'm sure I could do up some mittens to match, and...and...and...

(This is what it looked like this morning. It has grown 20 rows since then.)

I am very weak.

But in the interest of not being stupid about the deadline knitting, I have given myself a twenty-row-a-day goal: no more, no less. So far, so good, and I'm 100 rows in. That should give me a new cowl by Christmas Eve. Merry ho-ho to me!

Copping out

So I'm thinking seriously about dumping the Durrow sweater project as my husband's Christmas gift this year. There are a number of reasons for this:

1. (Biggest reason) Ever since the yarn came in, I've been worried that he wouldn't like the colour. Don't get me wrong, it is a fabulously awesome colour, and I know he thinks so, too, but I've had a nagging feeling the whole time I've been knitting it that it is not a colour he would ever want to wear himself. It's very vibrant, and he's quite conservative in his colour tastes. (Yep, the man has no problems sewing whatever he wants, or knitting lace in public, and he was the one who insisted on a big, elaborate wedding in front of our friends and family instead of the quickie ceremony in front of a judge that I thought would be great, and he gets way more upset than I do about emotional bits of TV shows...but saints preserve us if he's asked to wear purple.)
   
   
   
2. I'm not sure if I have enough of the yarn to finish the sweater. (Although admittedly, yesterday I did order one extra ball just in case, whilst falling hard for the Knit Picks Cyber Monday sale.)
   
   
   
3. November is almost over and I'm starting to feel the pressure of Christmas being pretty close.
   
   
   
4. (Second biggest reason) I found and ordered a really cool gift from ThinkGeek that I know he will absolutely love. (It was on sale, I couldn't pass it up; it'll be an anniversary or birthday present if I still end up going with Durrow as his Christmas gift.)
   
   
   
5. I already knitted him something (hooray for design samples) that he adores and will be able to start incorporating into his wardrobe around Christmastime once the pattern is published.
   

So I'm seriously thinking about scrapping the project for this year and knitting him Durrow as next year's gift, but out of a different colour yarn. (Not sure what I'll do with the yarn I've been using; maybe it'll be something for me...or maybe my dad, who has never seemed to flinch at wearing vivid colours.) I still think something in the general purple family would be great for DH, despite his blind spot that it's not a "guy" colour; but I think I need a purple that's much darker and more subdued to get him to buy into the concept.

Anyway, while I decide, I've been concentrating my efforts on other holiday gifts. I finished my mom's socks:

And I got started on my brother's Louis Vuitton knock-off hat:

That's currently my knitting focus at the moment. I'm quite happy with how it's coming along. And don't worry, the width-to-height ratio of the motif will look much more equal when it's actually being worn on a head.

I'm also looking ahead to the moment all my 2012 knitting goals are complete - I can cast on whatever the hell I want! I'm thinking the first thing might just be Bauble, which I love. I've got four 50g balls of Knit Picks Stroll sock yarn (with much more on the way, thanks to that sale yesterday) that will be fabulous with it.

Mmmmmmmmmm...

Okay, :::selfslap::: back to the knitting!

The swelling of the ego

So big news right off the bat - I have actually finished my 12-in-12 challenge! 42 days early! (The significance of that number is not lost on me.) And in fact, I went beyond the goal, because I have actually designed and submitted thirteen new designs this year, and am even working on another one. Plus, I recently submitted another design on top of that which I'm not counting towards the challenge because I did all the design work a few years ago and just hadn't submitted it anywhere until now. So I am feeling very heady with productivity and designerishness right now.

Another thing that's inflating my head is one of the two designs I sent off yesterday - the mittens I made for our daycare provider. For several days after I finished them, every time I looked at them, I was struck anew with how gorgeous they are and what a genius I must be to have invented them. Fortunately, this incredible level of conceit (which feels disturbingly un-Canadian) is starting to wear off a bit, otherwise I would be at real risk of landing myself in the hospital with a wrenched spine caused by excessive patting of myself on the back.

The good knitting news continues to roll, however - I'm pleased to say that I continue to make headway on the holiday gift knitting. As already mentioned, I finished the gift for our daycare provider, and I also finished the socks for my older BIL:

(horrible photo, unfortunately, but these days there isn't a lot of sunlight time at home during which to take shots)

That brings my total count to nine completed gifts (although I mustn't forget to steam my dad's hat), out of thirteen. And the tenth - the second pair of socks for my mom - should be finished shortly. Here they are a few days ago:

They're much farther ahead now - the second sock has a completed heel and foot, and I've begun the leg.

Once those are done, I will have only my brother's hat (sadly, I have yet to hear back from him about his head measurement), DD3's cardigan, and DH's sweater. These three projects are all tricky in their own way, particularly the cardigan and the sweater, which face the very real possibility of yarn insufficiency. So I'm definitely not out of the woods yet. But things are looking very decent, I think. I have certainly not given up hope of having time to make a few more things, so that DD1 and DD2 will also have handknits under the tree on Christmas morning.

Gifts a-plenty

So I've revised my holiday knitted gifts list down to a more reasonable level (I think), and started working on it in earnest. (Family members, LOOK AWAY NOW PLEASE!)

1. Morgan hat for Dad
   
   When last we left this, I had realised it came out much too small to fit my dad, and that I would have to frog it all and restart. I still have to do this.
   
   
   
2. Two pairs of socks for Mom
   
   One pair, as I've already mentioned, is done. And I've started the other one:
   
   
   
   
   
   Although if I get crunched for time, I'll drop the idea of making a second pair.
   
   
   
3. Hat for my brother
   
   This is a complete non-surprise for him, because he has a very specific kind of hat in mind that he wants me to knock off, and we've been discussing the details extensively. I haven't started it, but I have charted the essential pattern and found the yarn for it, which is an excellent start. Next task: find out his head circumference.
   
   
   
4. Durrow sweater for DH
   
   Haven't touched this in a while. Still hoping I won't run out of yarn on the sleeves.
   
   
   
5. Secret Garden cardigan for DD3
   
   When last we left this, I was totally stalling on continuing because I was convinced I was going to run out of yarn before finishing the collar and button bands. That's still where I am, but I am at least resolved to buy some more yarn (different yarn, same colour, which should be fine since it's probably just the button bands I'd need to use it for) if I do indeed run out, rather than ripping the whole thing back and starting again.
   
   
   
6. Socks for BIL#1
   
   Done!
   
   
   
   
   
   
7. Socks for BIL#2
   
   Started!
   
   
   
   
   
   
8. Mittens for our daycare provider
   
   The nice thing about this gift is that I can give it to her as a New Year's present, as she doesn't celebrate Christmas. One extra week to work on it, ha ha! But I have found some spectacular motif inspiration for this, and am really looking forward to designing it. The trick will be to resist doing that until I've made better headway on the projects which all have an earlier deadline.
   
   
   
9. Cowl for DD1's teacher
   
   Done! No pictures though, sorry. I'm hoping a magazine will like the design.
   
   
   
10. Mittens for DD2's teacher
    
    Yarn has been purchased, motifs have been decided upon, and right now I'm just figuring out gauge. I originally started with 4mm needles but I have a bad feeling that's going to make pretty breezy mittens, so I'm going to try seeing what gauge I get with 3.5mms instad.
    
    
    
11. Fingerless mitts for DD1's dance teacher
    
    Anne Neumann's Musica pattern has been in my queue for ages, and I thought it would work really nicely for this purpose. DD1 concurs, although she's asked if maybe I could replace the bass and treble clefs with pointe shoes, or some other ballet-related motif? So I'm going to try.
    

You'll notice I've dropped the projects for DD1 and DD2 - that's in the interest of my own sanity. I make them stuff throughout the year, so this is not a tragedy. And hey, if I finish everything with time to spare, I'll cast on for them. Although admittedly, if I have time to spare, I'm much more likely to cast on something for my niece instead.

I also picked up a new piece of gift knitting that needs to be finished for this weekend, which is the grand 10th anniversary celebration of one of my bestest friends. :) It's a challah cover:

It may look like I'm doing well there, but even after that lace edging gets finished, it has to be sewn to the main section; then there's a cable to be knitted that has to be sewn over the edging seam; and then there's embroidery. Things could get tight.

On a finishing kick

I just wrapped up a magazine sample project. As usual with these things, I can't spill any meaningful beans, but I don't think it'd be beyond the pale to say that it's another print magazine, which is exciting! The issue won't be coming out for a goodly while, but of course I will make an announcement here when it does. Now I just have to finalize all the written stuff and send off a package to the editor.

And I recently got another acceptance, which thrilled me all to pieces. So far with my 12-in-12 challenge (which I've done 5 of so far) I'm running a 75% acceptance rate for stuff I've heard back from, which I think is pretty excellent! But the new acceptance meant I needed to finish up the sample I'd been working on so that I could photograph it, so I did that today - it just needed some ends woven in.

And as long as I was sewing, I thought I might as well break out the "Miss Dashwood" hat I started working on for DD3 last year. It just needed the earflaps and ties sewn on and the ends woven in, so I did just that:

hat:




inside of hat showing the flaps:




inside of the hat with the flaps buttoned up out of the way:




hat modelled by a tired and messy-faced DD3:

I also took more steps towards finishing DD2's "Mythos" cardigan (second attempt). I ran out of yarn as I was approaching the end of the second half, but this wasn't a big deal because, once again, I'd made the sleeves too long. So I cut each sleeve open, unravelled a bunch of rows, and grafted them back together again. Then I grafted the two halves together at the back. And then I blocked it:

Sadly, I'm not remotely done yet. Not only are there a lot of ends to weave in, but I have to sew seams, fold a garter stitch selvedge under and sew it down, and do a bunch of icord (which I may run out of yarn for, aiee). So we'll just have to see how that goes. I may have to do the icord edging in a different colour. Meh, if it happens, it happens. I've got lots of black sock yarn that will look nice as an edge.

No luck finding that mythical thirteenth ball of yarn for DH's Durrow sweater - it's not at my parents' place, it wasn't left at Lettuce Knit, and it didn't roll under my seat in the car. I have gone around the house trying to find all the ball bands, on the theory that if I find all thirteen, I obviously used up all thirteen balls of yarn. Alas, I have only found eleven, so that's desperately inconclusive. So I'm very close to deciding to rip both sleeves back almost to the cast-on and do them again shorter. HOPEFULLY that will do the trick.

I'm trying to get as much done as possible because I've got deadlines popping up all over the place. Most of the deadlines are for proposals that I want to get in, but I do have another sample to do in the next month or so for which, hopefully, the yarn support will be arriving soon. In fact, I should head off now to check the mail again!

Traction: I don't haz it

At the end of May, I blogged that I'd realised I had sixty WIPs kicking around the house, assuming I finished DH's birthday socks and DD2's cardigan. Well, as already seen, I finished those socks; and recently, I finished the cardigan:

(As predicted, it fits DD1, not DD2.)

Plus I've finished some more items besides, and I now find myself with...sixty-two WIPs.

Oh dear.

And I thought I was doing so well.

I mean, seriously - in the last three months or so, I've finished a cardigan, a pair of Pemberley Slippers, three glitzy scarves, a felted purse, two pairs of socks, three cupcakes, a blanket, a vest, two prototypes of which I cannot speak, and a tank top. That's not shabby! And yet, I am further behind on my WIP count than when I started.

(Yes, I am perfectly aware that the reason for this is that many of those finished projects were also new projects on top of the monstrous pile of WIPs I already had. Someday, Mia Michaels will choreograph an emotionally gripping piece about the compelling, seductive power of Startitis and its hapless knitter victim, and then everyone will understand how this could happen to me.)

But goshdarnit, I am determined to make some inroads on that huge total. It isn't, however, going well.

• Although I'm over halfway through my latest prototype, I realised that I need to totally re-jig a part of it, which means ripping and redoing.
  
• I was making excellent progress on DH's Durrow sweater, and then ran out of yarn. This seemed odd, since I thought I had slightly overbought just to be absolutely sure, which makes me think that maybe I am missing one ball? (Unfortunately, I wasn't really keeping track as I went.) So I'm going to call my mom and ask if maybe a ball rolled out of my bag at her place. And lordy, I hope it did, because the alternative is to rip back both almost-done sleeves and redo them a little shorter. (This will fortunately not affect the fit since the sleeves ended up longer than they were supposed to be, which is one reason why I think that the last ball of yarn hasn't gone missing at all but is rather part of the sweater already.)
  
• I want to finish off all the making-up on my dad's Morgan hat but still haven't gotten around to it.
  
• I got DD2 to try on the Mythos cardigan I started for her about two years ago to see just how badly she's outgrown it. The answer: not too badly, but considering she'll probably be wearing it this fall, it needed to be bigger. So last night I ripped it out and started again, with bigger needles. I should have enough yarn even with the size increase, because the original version had sleeves which were mondo long on her. (Famous. Last. Words.)
  
• Oh, and I started a new design prototype.
  

Moreover, yarn support (times two) should be arriving soon, and I'll have to dump everything for those. (But believe me, I'm NOT complaining about that! :)

An update

Scads of knitting has been getting done, I just haven't been blogging about it. Likely because I've been too busy knitting. :)

DH's Durrow sweater has seen a lot of love:

DD3's Secret Garden cardigan is almost all done:

If there seem to be a lot of strands of yarn in that shot, it's because I have never actually broken any yarn on this project. Everything's attached to everything else. Why? Because I strongly suspected that I would be yardage-ly challenged and would have to frog some stuff. And indeed, I only have this much yarn left to do the collar and button bands:

Pretty sure I'm screwed.

I've been procrastinating on doing anything further because I'm kind of despondent about it. I don't actually want to discover that I'm right about not having enough yarn, even though I'm quite sure I don't have enough yarn. And if/when I do discover that I don't have enough yarn, I haven't come up with a decent plan about how to fix it. I still want to make this cardigan with this yarn in this size, doubled; and I don't want to have to knit it allllll over again. So I'm stalling.

I got all the knitting and weaving in of ends done on DD2's cardigan:

We also chose the buttons. I just have to sew them on and then I'm done!

I finished DD1's Pemberley Slippers.

top view:




side view:




pretend-there's-someone-in-'em view:

And I've been working like heck on a new design. This one is a labour of love, for a little boy who recently lost his sister. (He also has two baby brothers who died in infancy. I cannot begin to imagine the pain the parents carry around daily.) I can't bring her back, but I feel the need to do something, so naturally, I am knitting. The design involves a metric s**t-ton of math and I've been spending a lot of quality time with paper, pencils, a calculator and spreadsheets. But I've finally made good headway on The Final Product, and am really really pleased so far. I have a pretty idea of where I'm going to submit this, but I don't think the issue will open up for a while, so we'll see how it goes.

DD1, in the throes of a superhero obsession, and having designed her own superhero outfit for her "Whippy Woman" character, has discovered that putting pink socks on your hands doesn't really work very well and has asked me to knit her some pink gloves. I am actually considering doing it. I just need the yarn, since, me being me, I have almost nothing pink in the stash.

All of this, however, will shortly be put on hold because I have two sample items to knit. :) Can't wait to write more details about them, but that will have to wait!

I spent more money

Shortly after my Knit Picks purchase, I discovered that Interweave was having a "hurt book sale". I went and immediately found a slew of books I wanted, but scaled back significantly on my initial add-to-cart-fest so that my next credit card bill wouldn't be too horrific. These three ended up being my favourites:

I'm looking forward to poring over them in detail. DH is also keenly interested in reading all of them!

Then later, I caved even further and bought the complete 2007 Interweave Knits collection (including the gift issue) in downloadable format. A lot of patterns that I really liked were published in 2007 and I've been wanting the collection for some time, so to have it 40% off was fairly irresistible, not to mention a damn good deal.

Work on various projects proceeds apace, although I'm still not caught up with all the photography on it. I've finished the back of DH's Durrow sweater and have started on the front, and am just a few yards away from finishing off yarn ball #4. On DD3's Secret Garden cardigan, I've finished the main body and have started the sleeves. I'm doing them simultaneously to avoid Second Sleeve Despondence. So far, I've finished the increasing and am just working straight until it's time to start decreasing for the shoulder curves. Did I mention the yarn was lovely and squishy? Yes? Well, it's worth mentioning again. So squishy.

I did, however, finish DD1's turquoise frilly scarf and have the pictures to prove it:

I'm also still on such a high from that felted purse I made for DD1's morning teacher that I'm thinking of making up a bunch of felted bag patterns and writing an e-book out of them. Most of my mental energy is now being dedicated to telling myself that I should take on just one challenge at a time. This year is the year of twelve submissions. Then I can felt bags. Yes. (I'm not sure which voice is winning so far.)

I spent money

So Knit Picks was having a sale. This is generally a dangerous thing. And I succumbed. First of all, don't tell my husband, but the sale meant that I could finally afford enough yarn to make him Durrow for Christmas. They had Wool of the Andes in the Hyacinth colour on sale for $1.87 per 50g ball.

I got started almost immediately (although it's a bit longer than this now):

I also picked up some Stroll sock yarn in a few colours. Green Tea Heather caught my eye because it is a fabulous colour for DD3. I picked up six balls in the hope of making her a pretty cardigan:

It's really lovely stuff. I then spent ages on Ravelry's pattern search trying to find The Perfect Pattern to make with it. Finally, I came across a pattern from Alice Starmore's "Children's Collection" book that I'd already made for my niece some years ago, Secret Garden, and realised that that was exactly what I wanted to make with it. However, there were two problems. Firstly, the smallest size to make it in is 2-3 years, which is a little far off; I'd rather make something in the 1-2 year range. Secondly, it called for worsted weight (on 4.5mm needles). So I wondered, what would happen if I doubled the yarn and went down a needle size to 4mm?

This is what happened. Actually, it's even farther along now, I've finished the two front yokes and am working up the back. I cannot describe how deliciously squishy this is when you double up the yarn. And it is coming out a bit smaller than the 2-3 year size, which is what I want. I loves it.

I also got two balls of the sock yarn in the Caper colourway, which looked rather brown on my screen when I ordered it, but is instead olive:

This immediately rules it out as a yarn for my dad - if I give him socks made out of this, he'll start having flashbacks to World War II, when as a child, he had to knit socks for the soldiers out of horrible greasy olive wool. (He hated every moment of this. Not because he hated knitting, but because he hated the yarn.) So I might do it up for my brother or one of my brothers-in-law. Although I've been mulling over combining it with black and whatever leftover Green Tea Heather there may be from DD3's Secret Garden cardigan and doing up an argyle pattern with it, or something. That might look very nice indeed.

Finally, I bought four balls of Barn Red. It looked a little too vibrant and orange-ish for my taste on my screen, but I bought it anyway, and when it actually showed up, it turns out that the colour is the perfect red for me. I adore it and wish I had bought much more:

I just don't know what I'm going to make out of it. I'd love to make Jeanie, but I'd need two more balls. So it might just end up being two pairs of socks. I really want to make the Jane Bennet Socks from the latest issue of Jane Austen Knits, but I think they would look very wrong in bright red, so I'll have to find a different colour for that.

And speaking of new yarn, I finished off DD2's frilly scarf:

I still need to take a picture of DD2 actually wearing it, though.

I also started the frilly scarf for DD1 (no pictures yet) and finished off her first Pemberley Slipper (again, no pictures yet). But at least I do have pictures of the completed mini-bag I made for her morning teacher:

Didn't it come out bee-yew-tifully? I think it is fantastic and I'm having a hard time getting over myself about it. :) I decided to add a little button tab there, done in the same yarn as I used on the bottom of the bag. This serves to a) make the bag a little snazzier, and b) make the colour difference of the two reds look totally intentional. Word to the wise, though, for anyone wanting to felt anything as small as that button tab: don't bother using a washing machine, it will do nothing. Hand felt it instead.

Next time I post, I'll hopefully have more up-to-date progress photos and (more excitingly) another knitting-related order in my hot little hands!