Long time, no post!

Wow, long time no post, eh? Time slips through my fingers on a regular basis, but the closer we get to Christmas, I swear the black hole that is time gets stronger and stronger and the days veritably zoom past me. Crazy stuff.

Lots of work has been happening, and a goodly amount of knitting, too. I only have a couple of pics to share today, though. I promise more soon.

Anyway, here's an ear-flap hat I did using Rowan's Big Wool. One skein, size US15 circular and DPNs, a pattern from my LYS, about two hours and viola! It's part of the growing stash of Christmas FOs. Very warm and pretty cute, although trying to get a good picture using a swift as a model is a dicey proposition, at best. I think the next one I make will go faster now that I know how it all works out. I'm always slower the first time through until I can get a good visual of how everythign goes together.

There are changes afoot in my house -- something that's a very, very good thing. I enlisted some assistance and started rearranging and generally removing a lot of stuff out of the place. So far, I'm enchanted with the results. I'll have more info and some pictures soon, but suffice it to say that I now have an entire room devoted to all things fiber-related in my house! It's not 100% of the way there, yet, but it's a good 95% and it is amazingly lovely to have the space to put everything. And my garage. . . well, let's just say that it is a lot larger than I thought it was!

The daunting part of putting together the knitting room is seeing how much fiber-related stuff there is. Although I'm sure my stash pales in comparison to what some folks have, I think I could probably knit for a year or more without needing to buy yarn -- as long as all the projects I make can be done in sock yarn or laceweight, anyway. There are a few skeins of other things, but that's what primarly comprises my stash.

I can now sit in a comfy rocking chair (when Ellie the cat allows me anyway) in a sun-filled room (when the Northwest weather permits) and knit or browse patterns or whatever. Soon I'll have the laptop computer set up in there so I can easily take pictures and quickly update my Ravelry project and stash pages as well as the blog. I have the swift and ball winder firmly ensconced on a rolling worktable that can be opened to a full 60" long workspace. It seriously feels like I've moved into a new house or something -- and that's just one room. :)


Anyway. . .


Thursday, at the Tigard Knitting Guild meeting, someone mentioned a great find at one of the local Goodwill stores -- boxes chock full of palm leaf bags from Lantern Moon for . . . wait for it. . . $2.99 each! Needless to say, I was there the next morning (so was another guild member and she was on the phone to someone else telling her to hightail it down there before they were all gone). She also pointed out that not only do they make great project bags, but if you put a bottle of wine and some other goodies inside, you have a wonderful gift bag. Score!

They also had some nested boxes, which make great holders for the little things that go along with knitting -- markers and needles and whatnot -- and look good doing it. A nest of the four boxes you see in the picture was a total of $2.99. If your math skills are working for you, you've figured out that I got all four bags, plus a set of four nested boxes for under $15! Now that's a bargain!

Anyway, as I said, there has been more knitting happening here. I'll post more about it soon, I promise!