I know, I've been sort of quiet for a few days. Been busy (too much grading!) and under the weather, too (**Shakes fist at lazy people who run riding mowers over the leaves in their yards, effectively spraying mold spores everywhere, much to the misery of those of us who are severely allergic to molds**)

I did get some knitting done recently, and started a couple new projects.

First, I finished my mom's socks for Christmas. Wha-hoo! So now, unless I decide to knit "cat presents" (see below), I'm pretty much ready for Christmas (I do need to find some small "additional" present for my dad - probably will be a food item from the gourmet shop in my parents' hometown).

Started two new things: the Vegan Fox stole from Knitty. I bought the kit for this - for the "white fox" (which is actually more of a silvery off-white). I do see now how one could make up one's own combination of yarns for this - perhaps not as luxuriously , but more affordably.

My assessment? Yes, it's fast knitting (I'm not terribly far on it though - ) but it's annoying to me to have to knit with three strands of textured yarn (and such different textures) held together. I don't think I'm going to do this one in a single sitting, like it sounds like Theresa did.

I also started a pair of fingerless mitts - this was using the "Cashmere mitts" pattern from the Spring 2002 Interweave. Now, their pattern used "Sinful" and when I priced it, it was something like $60! For a pair of mitts! So I'm using Lion Brand Wool-Ease Chunky instead (umm....$3.74 (if I remember right) for a pair of mitts). I plan to use these for driving (it's always cold first thing in the morning) and in my office (they seem to turn off the heat at unpredictable intervals). Heck, I have enough yarn, I might make 2 pair and keep one in the car and one in my office.

And I may be starting yet another project - this one to use up scrapyarn. Sarah Bradberry posted a cute pattern (can be accessed from here, it's in a .doc file) for something called a "Pebble Baby". I saw them and thought "cat toy" (I know Sarah is a cat lover, so I don't think she'll be insulted by that). I can see the shape and the slickness of the yarn sliding and spinning well on the tiled floors in my parents' house...I'd need to make 3 of these babies, there are my two "furry sisters" (as my folks call them) and my "furry nephew" (my brother and sis-in-law's cat; by extension if Mom and Dad's cats are my "sisters", he must be my "nephew")

I may use sport yarn and size 1 or 0 for these to make them just a bit smaller - though for Bozarth (that's my "nephew"'s name), I should probably do a fullsized one - he's a Maine Coon Cat and he's big.