Still making gifts!

The last two posts haven't had much knitting in them so I thought I would update what I have been knitting. I've continued working on presents for the holiday season. I broke down and showed my brother his present in progress when he was here last weekend. He's about to go out of the country for the next year and I kinda wanted to see if he liked the yarn and such in person. When I pulled out the beginning of the Marsan Watchcap I'm knitting for him, he just sort of looked at it like "I hope that actually turns into a hat." I reassured him that it is a very simple pattern but it does have some nice detail along the top. I really like this pattern. It's a K1,P2 ribbing where you knit in the back of the stitch. For some reason, just adding the twist by knitting into the back of the loop makes this more interesting than plain ribbing. That makes no sense but it is true for me. I'm at the point where it is time to start the decreases. I'm a bit limited on where I can knit this because I'm trying to be conscious of my brother's allergy to cats and only knit this away from my house. Not as easy as it seems since it requires planning ahead.

I'm also working on some house socks for S. I have some 100% Alpaca worsted weight yarn she bought about a year ago and I've been looking for something to do with it. I've only got 100g so there weren't many patterns that were appealing to me. Well, I finally decided to just do a simple pair of short socks for wearing around the house. I'm just using the Basic Sock Formula from Yarn Harlot's Knitting Rules book. So far, a strict pattern just sort of scares me and I like just winging it with the Harlots easy instruction. I am being careful to keep really good notes on the first sock with stitch and row counts so I will hopefully be able to reproduce it for the second sock. Doing this second sock is really making me want to learn how to do two socks on one giant needle per Cat Bordhi's New Pathways for Sock Knitters. Everyone has been raving about this technique and I find it very appealing to finish both socks at the same time and know they will be the same. Right now, I just can't justify spending the money on the needles I want to try this with. They are very reasonably priced but I have to get every penny sent to the bill collectors right now. Of well. I'll be getting these pretty Harmony needles soon! In the meantime, maybe I'm get the single circular to try out the technique. I've got some sock yarn I'm dying to get going with.

Lastly, I had started a shawl for another gift and I don't like the way it is going. I have some Sensations yarn from Jo-Ann's and I think I'll be spending a bit of time on Ravelry to see what others are doing with this yarn because I really want to use it for the gift. I did see a scarf/shrug thing where you knit a rectangle and then fold it in half and sew opposite corners together to form a twisted loop. Then you can wear it like a scarf/shrug/hood item. It looks pretty good and I think it will wear neat with this yarn. What do you think?

Oh, I almost forgot, I'm making progress on the Baby Surprise Jacket. I'm really liking the colors of the yarn together and it's been pretty fun to knit so far.

Well, I have just a couple more items from my stash to get uploaded to Ravelry and then I'm going to do some pattern searching before working on the socks in front of the TV tonight. I hope you have a good night too. -Z