Cleaning house!

And boy does it feel good!

(BYW: this post was supposed to go up yesterday, but effing Blogger wouldn't let me upload pics for the last 24 hours. I was thinking about switching to TypePad, but then realized that you can't customize your design for the lower $5 monthly fee - only for $8/mon. Bogus)

First: this is not cleaning house, but I knit up the cabled hat pattern that my One Skein Secret Pal sent me with this beautiful Great Adirondack wool/silk yarn:


It was quick and easy and turned out beautifully! Thank you thank you thank you!

Quickie note: I never posted a finished, nicer picture of the Lotus Leaf Lace Tank from Interweave's summer Knits, so here it is.

On to the cleaning: I got motivated to clean up this pile of junk yesterday,

so I organized, and dug through some really old WIPs. First to go?

The Pacific Northwest Shawl. Frogged it. I just didn't like how the yarn was showing (or not) the pattern. I think that llama yarn is beautiful, it just is too dark for this garter lace pattern. I have some nice Lorna's that I will use when (and if) I start this pattern again. I'll try the llama on some other lace pattern this winter.


More cleaning:

These two purses were kits from Pussy Cat 2, and were knit by my mother-in-law last summer. She gave them to me to sew together and assemble, and I just now finally got around to it. They are really cute designs, but I can tell you that the finishing is not for the faint of heart. A good day and a half went into putting these two things together. All of the materials are included in the kits (thankfully!), but it requires some hand-sewing to get it all done. Great results, though!

Let's see - what else can I report? Sabrina, next door at the clothing store So Much Fun, got a crazy hair to knit a giant, ottoman-sized cupcake. Here is the cupcake in progress:

She used Cascade Magnum in Cotton Candy for the base (on size 17 circulars), and plans to mix cream Magnum and cream Gedifra Sheela for the top (on size 19s). I'll post finished pics of the whole cupcake ottoman tomorrow.

Last but not least, CK wanted me to take a pic of her beautiful chalk picture. She is so proud. :)