Paper Starfish

Well, the sweater vest is trucking along and will be ready for ribbing at the arms and neck soon. No big news there.

One of the UFOs lurking in the knitting closet is the log cabin blanket from Mason-Dixon Knitting. Now don't get me wrong, I love those gals over at MDK and love their book. I love the log cabin blankets in the book which is why I started one of my own. I do not love my log cabin blanket. I dont know what it is... it just looks blah. I'm planning to do the "cool colors" on one side and the "warm colors" on the other a la one of their gorgeous examples. I'll go a littl bit longer with it because I'm still hoping it could be a cute baby blanket (for some unknown baby) backed with a whimsical, colorful fabric. We'll see.

On to something more positive. I have these three skeins of Peace Fleece calling out to me. I just don't quite know what they're saying they want to become. Peace Fleece is a workhorse wool in the cloth diapering world but since we're not using those any more, I don't need covers. It felts beautifully. Maybe it wants to be something for my Craftster swap partner! Renee are you out there? *wink, wink*

I'm eyeing some tweed yarn for a Tomten jacket for the Scooter. Will probably cast on for that in the days after Labor Day!

A friend of mine from high school (13 years ago - yikes!) recently got engaged so of course, I had to make her a card. No stamping on this one but lots of Stampin' Up! supplies. I love the color Chocolate Chip and probably overuse it but it's so great and matches a lot of other colors!

I'm also on a big chipboard covered in patterned paper kick which is how I mde the heart on this card.

Congratulations M&M!

Well, seeing as today was the Scooter's first day of preschool (sniff, sniff) it was perfect timing that I finished the sweater vest last night. I was able to slip it on him this morning to be modeled during some "first day school" pictures. It came out great. No mods or problems with the pattern or yarn. A quick, simple knit. It hasn't been blocked yet so it may look a little wonky but you get the idea!

Doesn't every knit blogger need to comment on the new edition of Knitty? I think this issue is chock full of some great patterns. With that being said, I don't know how soon I'll make any of them. I have a lot on the needles and in the queue. I do love Foliage for a quick but pretty knit. I am also taken by Mr. Greenjeans, Flower Power and Totally Autumn. It seems everyone in blog-land loves Cherie Amour so I'll give it another look but it didn't thrill me on first glance.

Just so this isn't an "all talk, no action" post I'll get a picture up of some recent notecards I created for a swap:

Simple but cute. My partner is into Christmas as much as I am!

I had a great time crafting for my swap partner over on Craftster. I haven't gotten my package yet but since my partner has hers it won't ruin any surprises if I post the things I made here.

One project was Amanda's Squatty Sidekick from Knitting Daily. If you haven't signed up for their e-mails yet, I highly recommend them. This was a quick knit and used less than a skein of Peace Fleece which turned out to be the perfect yarn for this bag. I found the button at my favorite LYS, Mission Rose Quiltery. The only mod I made to the pattern was to lengthen the i-cord portion of the handle a bit.

Without further ado:

pre-felting:

and after the magic or a top-loading washing machine:

On a sad note, it seems people can't leave comments here on my blog right now. My amazing webmistress is working on it and hopefully, we'll be up and running in that department soon!

I'm knitting along on Cherie Amour with the help of some fellow knitters on Craftster. Unfortunately, some of those knitters have found that the shape of Cherie Amour isn't flattering their figure once they're done. I really hope this sweater looks nice on. The fact that it is bottom up makes it a bit more difficult to determine fit along the way.

Anyway, it's Patons Shetland Chunky in a nice chocolatey brown color. The pattern is going along nicely and I haven't made any mods yet to the medium size.