Long and ramble-y. You've been warned.

Look what I received in the mail on Saturday! Thank you Secret Pal! I'm looking forward to finding out who's been spoiling me so well these past few months!
There's a skein of Alpaca fingering weight yarn and the Fall 2006 Interweave Knits, which included an insert on scarves. I've never really looked at a knitting magazine before. I might have to look in to buying one or two more. The patterns in this particular edition are pretty nice. I really like that sweater on the front. I wonder what other colors would look like...

wait...I'm not allowed to start new projects until I finish the ones I'm working on!

Speaking of WIP: Here's a shot of Eris, from the last time that I worked on it, on Saturday.

I've finished the edging on the front left side, and am working on the front right side. It's actually a very clever construction: every other row (and occasionally more often) a stitch is picked up from the body and knit together with a stitch from the border. Not only does it look really nice, it also means that I don't have to bind off stitches at the bottom! Yay!

I did make a boo-boo, though. I can't remember (I need to learn to write things down as I work) whether I used US 4's or 3's to make the cardigan's collar. I'm using 3's for the hem, but the cables look smaller then the ones on the collar. This is how it's supposed to look. I hope that it doesn't matter too much. And I ought to have done the cabled raglan increases so that the cabled waist shaping would match. But I didn't notice that option until I was getting ready to start the waist shaping. Oh well.

I've been rather social the past few weeks, as far as fiber hobbies are concerned. One of the LYS's here in town has just started having an open knit night on Wednesdays. I went the first night, and there were three of us there: one of the owners, and another girl and I. It was fun. I do knit in public sometimes, but I'm always the only one. It was nice to have other people to talk to about what they're doing. I also went last week, and there were seven or eight people there. It was fabulous! People talked about going to the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival and about yarn habits and projects they want to do and things they're learning.

This coming Friday, I think I'm going to go learn how to spin. I tried a drop spindle once, and it was kind of fun, but I think I'd like to try a wheel, too. I always thought it would be so cool to have an antique-looking spinning wheel sitting in my living room, pretending to be a decorative item, but actually knowing how to use it!