so after about the third try of casting on, I am now making some nice progress on the Voodoo’s. first time I forgot to rib it, 2nd time I was short two stitches, and the current time, I somehow managed to add two stitches to one needle, but it was within the first few rows, so I fake-fixed it. thankfully it’s not noticable unless you’re looking for it.

I also finished the ‘caterpillar’ scarf for my sister. I love it, it’s so soft and fuzzy! I think I’ll need to find some colors I like of that yarn and make one for myself. =) [for photo & details, see Dec 13 post]

last night I went to JoAnn’s to exchange the dpns I bought. for some bizarre reason I had it in my head that I needed sizes 5 & 7, so for some reason I picked the 7s. I can’t figure out why, since both projects I want to make at the moment need size 5. so back they went for the right size. then I went to Michael’s (it was right up the road and en route to the budget theatre - I saw Wimbledon. cute movie.) anywho, I bought some more dowels - so I’ll soon have size 7, 11, 13, and something between a 15/16. and I used my coupon on some Moda Dea Sassy Stripes yarn in color 6997 (the skein looks nothing like the little pic to me, so we’ll wait and see how it turns out).

So I’ve just cast on for the Voodoo Wrist Warmers. I learned a new cast-on - the long tail method. So far I like it better than the other way I’ve been doing, but we’ll see once we start knitting.

So yay! My first time using that cast-on and my first time using double points. Fun stuff!

I’ve been neglecting Lilin’s scarf a bit. I’m frustrated with the width of it (too wide, IMO). I’ve sort of decided to reknit it, but considring how much of a tangle the yarn got into previously, I don’t want to frog it. So I’m going to find the other ends of the yarnballs and start knitting from there, then frog as needed in attempt to keep the yarn tangle-free. We’ll see how that goes.

In other news, the scarf for my sister is almost done. Actually I was 99.9% finished with it earlier today, until I ran into a problem.

I made it to the end of the 1st skein of yarn for my sister’s scarf, and decided it’d be long enough as is, so decided to bind off instead of making it longer. So I look at the tail and convinced myself that I could get one more row and still have enough to cast off. (since this is my 3rd FO, I don’t know why I thought that - def not an expert yet…) So I finish my row and get maybe 2/3 to the end of the binding and yup, not enough yarn. So I try to rip back to the beginning of the row. Well, apparently I twisted something about three stitches in and couldn’t figure out how to get the yarn to just zip right out. So I pull the needle out and futz a bit and manage to lose a few stitches. Finally I get the end to cooperate, but since I’m in a black block I can’t figure out what’s going on so I rip that row out too. Almost get it back on the needles and realize I have too many stitches, so I try to fix a dropped stitch and figure out why I still have too many stitches on the needle. Frog a few more rows. Again, get nowhere.
So I grab my massive stitch-holder (it’s about as long as the needle), jump down to the orange row, and weave it in and out of the knitting so I have a row correctly on something before I rip. Apparently I misgrabbed something cuz the last two stitches didn’t want to play nice. Figured I must have grabbed from the next row up and stuck it on the needles and finally got it back into place.

I spent a good 1 1/2 - 2 hours knitting the last two blocks, and a good 45 min- 1 hr fighting with it to fix it. *sigh* but that’s ok, at least this time I know to stop and not try to fit one last row in…

I’m still slowly working on the scarves. Here’s some progress after working on my sister’s yesterday.

This past weekend I had a dance competition down in Chicago on Saturday. Tinley Park to be exact. And thanks to the Knitty coffeeshop, I discovered that there was a LYS in the neighboring town. So I stopped in Knitting, Etc. after the competition, and was surprised to find a Moving Sale going on. I found some Sock Yarn on sale for something like 40% off, so I grabbed it.

The staff there was really nice - I’m thinking I’ll need to visit the next time I’m down there.

I was planning on staying with my parents and visiting my sister on the way home, and on the way to my sister’s, decided to stop in at the Goodwill store nearby. Found some great deals - DPNs in sizes 0, 1 & 2; some odd tool that I’ve seen pictured but don’t remember what it is, a crochet hook, and a ball of Lion Wool-Ease. Everything was 69¢!

While at my parents, I finished the kitty wonton, but didn’t have a yarn needle with me to stitch it up. So I finished it when I got home last night. Ah, happy kitty!

Oh, and I received another ebay win over the weekend - 5 circular needles in various lengths & sizes.