Sweet Shrug

As usual, I took the summer off from knitting except for the errant cat blanket, but I got back into the swing of things with this shrug I made for my niece. She was recently baptized and my sister had a heck of a time finding a white dress for her (that wasn't outrageously priced to boot.) The one she did find was sleeveless. Brr in October. So here is the color coordinated shrug I knitted as a birthday present for her. The purple ribbon in the sleeves matched the sash on the dress.

Simply Soft Gauntlets 4/18/11

Here is the final product! Cozy!

Simply Soft Gauntlets (con't)

Barely worked on the gauntlets this week, but did make a little progress last night. The needles I'm using are really long aluminum ones so they are heavy. :( I need to do some cleaning in my yarn room and recover some abandoned bamboo needles. I'm sure they are tied up with a cat blanket or scarf or something. I did start a new cat blanket today too in the diagonal knit pattern. It is one of my favorites as it knits up so quickly and is easy to memorize. It should also be the last of this giant ball of dark red yarn I've been using that came from the IHS donation box. Hooray! Looking forward to a new color.

New Project

So, true to my New Year's Resolution (one of them,) I am sticking to my yarn diet. This was particularly difficult on my recent business trip to Rapid City, SD where there was a yarn shop directly across the street from the branch I was visiting! Luckily, I was working late every night so I didn't get to go in and tempt myself with some new yarn. I have been sticking with cat blankets to use up my acrylic stash, however I finally started the first new project of the year: a pair of Simply Soft gauntlets in Pistachio (a pretty spring green color) as a gift for my boss' birthday in a few weeks. http://www.caron.com/projects/ss/ss_SS12_fingerless_gloves.html

Aleta's Birthday Blanket

From Lion Brand's library, Catch the Wave Afghan, http://www.lionbrand.com/patterns/60684.html?noImages=, here is a ripple blanket in Homespun: barley, cream, and prairie. Fairly quick to knit up, I used stitch markers to help keep myself on track. Enjoy!