What I'm Working On

Let's start with Sis's afghan, shall we?  

Seriously, this pic does not do it justice.  We can see the pretty color, so that's nice.  But the size?  Totally masked.  Since I'm working it on circular needles, you're only seeing half the length.  Remember, I'm working it side to side, not top to bottom.  And its loose garter stitch, so there's some stretch and...anyway, it's almost, but not quite, half done.  When I do finish it, I'll stretch it out to it's massive length and show it off that way.  I don't know if it really comes off in the picture just how thick it is.  You can, of course, click it to embiggen.  What do you think?  Looks warm and cozy right?  And I put the skein in there so you can see how the yarn is nubbly.  I think they technically call this a boucle, but I personally not regard it as such.  I'm picky that way.  But it's very big and very warm, and I hate working on it during these hot days because it makes my lap uncomfortable.  The only thing that keeps me going at all is I know how much Sis is going to love it when it's done. 

Now, this?  This is my fun side project.  I started this, to play with the top down shawl pattern and this is how far I've gotten.  It starts with five stitches.  And you grow it with yarn overs, you can see them there where there are holes, and you just keep adding yarn overs so every other row gets four extra stitches.  And that's how you get the triangle shape.  You see there in the middle where all the holes meet?  That's the starting point.  and I'm working down the long sides, back and forth.  It's garter, too, because I didn't want to have to block it when I was done.  The one thing I've learned from this is that I don't want it to be garter based when I make Auntie's shawl.  Even though that makes it totally reversible.  If I do it stockinette, though, I'll have to block.  And I don't know how well that's going to work out.  I'm still exploring my options.  I came across a pattern booklet that claims you can take any pattern stitch, plug it into her equation, and you can get a shawl.  Any pattern stitch.  I'm still debating on whether or not I want to spend the money on it.  Because the one thing I know for certain is that I do not want to do Auntie's in garter.  Do.  Not.  Thus far though, I have yet to find a free pattern that I really want to do.  If anyone out there has any suggestions, please shoot 'em my way.  Cause pretty soon, I'm going to be desperate.

Once again though, I really need to get cracking on Sis's blanket.  Because soon, The BFF has a birthday, and she's getting something awesome, though if push comes to shove, I can knock that out in a week or two.  I just really don't want to leave it to the last minute.  That would suck.  And make me a bad friend.

Anyway, that's all I'm working on at the moment. But I have so much more planned.  Because people have birthdays.  And don't even get me started on Christmas!  Good gracious, now I'm starting to panic!  It's August already!  Why have I been such a slacker?!