Knitting! I Knew You'd be Thrilled!!!

Here's a Picture of What Came in the Mail on Friday:



Be still my heart. I don't know much about this yarn, but I know that I'm in heaven knitting away at the soft, soft, softness of it, and.. Oh? What's that you say?

You: "Weren't you telling us last week that you had a million projects to work on for Christmas?"

Me: "Yes.."

You: "And isn't Christmas in 20 days? Less than 20 whole days, actually?"

Me: "I believe you are correct in that statement."

You: "For whom are you knitting this wonderfully soft, soft, softness?"

Me: [squirms in seat]

You: "Hasn't your husband, for whom you were planning a present, spent hours online, searching out your perfect gift? Isn't he going on a road trip to find the perfect special something that will light up your eyes?"

Me: "Well, we don't know that it will actually be something I like.. ok, so I will probably love it, but that's only a probably.. and I am planning on buying him something. And there are many useful holidays after Christmas which deserve a present. AND who says I have to give it to him to mark any special occasion? Can't it be an expression of my undying love any day of the year? Why does it have to be Christmas?"

You: [sigh]

So it's this wonderful blend of wool/acrylic (25/75%) made by Darlaine (which I've never heard of) Yarn Company - the ball bands look terribly old vintage, and one of them has a price sticker on it that says (GET THIS) ^.45(!!!), so I'm pretty sure they're old vintage.*

[*This Makes Me INSANE!]

But guess what I've decided to knit with it?

Did you guess yet?

This. Isn't it lovely? My guage is slightly off - I'm knitting at 22 st/inch rather than the 21 it calls for, but they're on the small side to allow for the way cotton grows after you knit it.. actually, I'm not sure that makes any sense, but this next part does.. I'm knitting the size above the one I really need. So it should be fine. Put in a way you might actually care about, the wool I'm knitting with is 75% acrylic, 25% wool, so it's not going to stretch like the cotton would after getting wet, and the guage I have will make the sweater *slightly* smaller than the one she's using as a guide, so I went up 4" in bust size to allow for that. If it doesn't fit, I've got a good excuse to lose a few pounds. It's that soft and wonderful, I'd diet for it. That's love, people.

Yes, I do realize that unless I actually lose the weight I'm sort of contemplating losing, the chances that I'll look even slightly like the girl in this picture are slim-to-none. We're working on the mindframe necessary to lose weight. It's a lot of work.

In other news, I also knit something for my brother this weekend! It's fantastic, and when I wore it to the gas station on a test-drive, I couldn't help but ask the gas station man what he thought of it. He said he liked it, and I said I made it AND THEN HE SAID IT LOOKED LIKE SOMETHING YOU WOULD BUY!!!*

[*I'm a little excited because that means I'm not disillusioning myself about my abilities. I can actually do this, and make it look ok! Yahoo!]