I Didn't Want To Say It Too Loudly...*edited*

...but look. I keep waiting for it to get cold again and for snow or sleet or freezing rain to fall and plunge us back into the depths of winter, but it might not happen.










I finished the knitted hot pad I was working on the other day,



and I couldn't stop thinking about crocheting more dishcloths together to make more hot pads so I took some to work to play with.




I'm working on sleeve #1 of the Khaki Cardi but it looks the same, so I won't be taking more pictures until progress is more apparent.

I picked up the gusset stitches on Neon Sock #2 and started decreasing so I can work down the foot and off the toe,

(I keep looking at that variegated section of the sock leg and remembering a variation I learned in this book, where you designate one color of short-repeat variegated yarn and you purl those stitches when they appear on your needle to be worked, now not when that color shows up in the working yarn, when loops of that color are on the needle to be worked next. I am very tempted to frog back to the edge of the orange and do that, but look how far I am. I'm on the gusset. Once I'm done with this sock, I'll find some other variegated yarn [I have tons of variegated yarn; it's my all-time fave] and cast on another sock, one with an afterthought heel which is a technique I haven't tried yet. So, no, won't be frogging all that work today. Whew. I'm glad I made that decision. I feel better now. It's like when the kids were small and wanted to buy something in every store. I taught them to say "someday can we buy this?" and then I could say, "yes, someday we can" and they were happy that someday we could, but not today, and sometimes it was today but I could endure that "someday" much more easily than "buy me this NOW.")


and I added some rounds to the Rolled Brim hat. I love the yarn; it is the height of delicious feeling yarn. I never understood the enthusiasm people have for yarn that's closer to the sheep, but now I do. This is the best yarn I've ever used. I wish I'd bought all the other skeins that day.









I have to tell you something. I spent at least an hour in each of two local yarn shops yesterday, and I didn't buy a thing. Not one skein of yarn, not one needle. I'm not saying I didn't look around, but I didn't feel like I had to buy something just because I was there. I'm not doing too badly not buying yarn this year. Maybe I'll be able to face my stash without blushing by the end of the year.