Well, hello there!

It sure has been a while, hasn't it? I suppose I haven't had much to blog about lately, although there has probably been one or two blog-worthy things going on.

I'd say Finished Objects are the most blog-worthy of all, right?



That's the artsy "what the hell IS that?" shot. Here's a more clear blocking photo:



All six feet of Branching Out!



This scarf has taken me, literally, a year to knit! Gimme a break; it was my first lace. The first quarter or so of it was pretty excruciating, but the time I spent on it while traveling last month really helped me to see the light at the end of the tunnel. I still have a little ball of yarn left that could be anywhere from 50 to 100 yards; I guess I can keep it around for some trim or something.



Don'tcha just love the pre-blocking, ugly wet ball of mess photos? There's a kiosk at the Prudential Mall that sells little lacy shawls that are a pretty simple knit, and they don't appear to be blocked. They look like little fuzzy piles of mohair sitting in the baskets. I've wondered if any even sell.

Speaking of ugly stuff:



My nice cotton/angora hoodie gets blue-green fuzz everywhere, every time I wear the damn thing. This is my purse strap. You should have seen the day I wore it with a denim skirt and black tights. Mmmmm...blue-green fuzzy legs.



I keep thinking that eventually it will run out of stuff to shed, and then it will stop shedding, but when will that be? When it's threadbare? When I first washed and blocked it, I put it in the dryer very briefly to try to "de-fuzz" it a little. I'm lucky all the dryer vents didn't get blocked, sparking a fire. The dryer screen got pretty frickin' full. I do love this sweater, though; it's so soft and cuddly. I wish it would keep the fuzz to itself though.

Enough with the ugly. . . here's some more pretty.



This picture was taken 3 days ago, and I've knit another 4 inches or so on this. It's the Dickinson Pullover from the Fall 2007 issue of Interweave Knits. I realize that I'm a year behind everyone else, but 2007 was the Year of the Sock with me. 2008 is the Year of the Sweater. And the Year of the Sock. And the Year of Lace. But I digress. My MIL's friend gave me 4 gigantic skeins of yarn when I was in NC last month:



Yes, I sent a thank-you card. :)

Three of these are the same yarn: Robin Aran 400, off white. There's about 800 meters in each skein. I haven't even converted that to yards, but I converted it in my brain to A SHITLOAD OF YARN. The first thing I said was "Fisherman's Sweater!" I couldn't find an authentic pattern I liked, but I fell in love with this pattern. It's got a cable chart that made my eyes cross at the first glance. Guess what? IT'S WICKED EASY. This pattern is practically intuitive, or maybe it's me that's intuitive. Either way, I love it and hope it doesn't look like ass on me when it's done. If it does, I'll just give it to my mom.

One of the skeins is not like the other; it's a darker off-white and is 60% wool, whereas the Robin Aran 400 is 25% wool/75% baby-melting acrylic (sorry, been spending too much time in the Ravelry Rubberneckers group lately). I'm not sure what to do with this other skein, but I figure that one out when I finish this sweater. Hopefully I'll finish it before sweater weather gets here, which is my way of saying, "Hey, I hope it stays warm for a while longer!". I'm kind of a slow knitter.

I'm going to close this post with a "look how my baby has grown" comment.

Remember sweet petite Ellie, when we brought her home in January?



Look at her now:





I dare say, she's downright corpulent. She's almost as big as Ken.