First up, is an FO. Twiggy Tweed from the current Knitty. I used Shine Worsted from Knitpicks side is fraternal. . I'm not sure if I took a piccie of the yarn. I finished sewing in the lining last night. I'm pretty proud of it. I knew that I wouldn't have enough of one color to do the whole bag, so eachThen, I just knit up two strips in stockinette, crossed them, and mattress stitched the sides together to make them into tubes. I tried knitting back for the first time working on this purse, and I must say, I LOVE it! If it was as easy to purl back, I would use it all the time, but for ribbing and shaping, it just doesn't work.
Next up, is a few WIPs. First, some socks I'm making for my mother. She knows about them, so I don't feel so bad posting where she can see them. The yarn is Knitpicks Essential Tweed in Flint. The pattern is Aran Braid from Knitpicks. See a pattern here? I love Knitpicks! Living as far out in the boonies like I do, it's a great mail order option. Back to the socks - they're my first real kept cabling. I've practiced on some scrap yarn on a swatch, but never like this. The hardest part to me is that the needle I was using to cable was flimsy. I know all about cabling without a needle, but I don't feel up to that with this yarn. It's just too tight as is.
Last up is the first of a pair of Knucks from Knitty Summer 06. Yet again, Knitpicks yarn, this time, Merino Style. The pinkish color is right on, but the other one is actually a bit more towards the red end of the spectrum Purples are just a hard color to photograph. The embroidery on these is going to be a secret, just to be on the safe side in case she reads before she gets them.
Next, some laceweight I got just to even out the order. Better to knock the order up to 40 and get more yarn than to pay shipping, cause hey, it gets you more yarn!! I'm not sure what this is going to be, but I've got almost 1000 yards of it, and a few shawl patterns I've been eying, so we'll see what happens.
I made a trip down to Village Wools last week. I met Scout - she's much taller than I thought she would be, but just as nice. She talked me into getting a book, Spin to Knit. I went in to get some roving, and didn't know how to buy it. (I thought it would be in a "skein" type thing, not just pull some off and weigh it.) I felt bad, seeing her rant about how she hates it whe people come into the shop and ask a question they can get the answer to online. I really did research, I just didn't know how to buy the roving! Well, I got talked into a hi-lo spindle from Schadt, instead of the purple stained one that I almost nabbed. I also picked up some...something wool for learning on. It's something local (as in from this state) but I can't remember what it was. That's my first try at spinning there on the spindle, and I'm pretty proud of it! I also got some colored corriedale in green and lavender. And just cause I could, I got some alpaca roving when I was at the ranch the other day.
Now that this qualifies as the longest blog post ever, I'm off to sleep. And a note to myself and anyone who uses blogger - if you're gonna blog around a bunch of pictures, load them first. It's a pain to move them from the top when you've already got a large amount of text.

Edited to add - I have tried to make this post "lie" better with the text and the pictures, but I just can't do it this late at night. If you want to see text that is over a picture, just highlight it, you should be able to read it better. Sorry!!