small linkage change: I've added Alexandra Virgiel's blog, Artisokka, in place of the now-ended "One More Row and Another Latte" (sorry to see Theresa leave blogland...)

I like Alexandra's blog but realize I can never remember its address, so I'm putting a link right there so I can find it any time I want now. (Yeah, I could just bookmark it but my bookmarks file is already so full).

(And A., if you were the Alexandra who posted a comment about the alligator pattern, thanks. And it is written as a row-by-row pattern, so one of these days I'm going to try it - maybe even out of a sockweight yarn on teeny tiny needles so I have a small alligator. Maybe even use my ball of brown Opal Crocodile - yeah, I know, it'll pool instead of croc-ing)

And SOMEDAY I really am making that Fibonacci sweater that she designed. I promise. Just as soon as I feel like knitting on wool again - I think after I finish Zelda my next sweater is either going to be the Pachuco cotton sweater, or (yes-I'm-a-bad-girl-and-bought-more-stuff-from-Elann) Sally's Favorite Summer Sweater out of the "Grape Crush" Austermann Mayfair. Ahem. Can I talk about this yarn for a moment? It is THE most gorgeous purple. Even prettier in person than on the website. I really must stop consulting Elann every Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday because I regularly find things I cannot live without. Or I convince myself I cannot live without.

Anyway, it's more often I buy a yarn because I have a specific pattern in mind. Or I buy the yarn on "spec" and just buy enough for a generalized "pullover" or "cardigan" (I know roughly what I need for a pullover in my size, or a cardigan, or a shawl, out of different yarn weights).

Very rarely do I see a yarn, and without a pattern in mind, have one pop into my head and say "This yarn would make a fabulous version of that pattern." I wasn't even particularly thinking about Sally Melville designs.

But I saw this yarn, and I knew I had to have it for one of her "favorite summer sweaters." So I bought, crossing my fingers that I was buying enough (I've had adventures where I bought two or three skeins too few for a desired pattern, and sweated all through the knitting process). Score, I bought more than I need - so maybe I can make a little bag or a little hat or something with what's left. Although I don't normally go in for the "Look how crafty I am! My purse matches my sweater matches my hat!" look because I think That Way Lies Madness, at least on a thirty-ish unmarried woman (at least I don't own any cats, yet. But I do have teddy bears...)

But the purple - it's just radiant and perfect and it makes my complexion and hair and eyes look wonderful. Or at least I think it will, once it's knit up. Or even if it doesn't, the color just makes me so happy that I will look radiant when I'm wearing the finished sweater.

Okay, so maybe I could use the leftover bits of yarn for a lacy scarf, to be worn at a different time than the sweater. Like, maybe over the black dress that I have that one of my officemates when I was in grad school inadvertently insulted me about one day by telling me it looked like an Amish dress (not that I have anything against the Amish; it was just not the look I was going for - I probably should have gone all pedantic on his a** and told him it couldn't be Amish because it had buttons and everyone knows the Amish eschew buttons as being too worldly). But anyway - now I have this compulsion to always wear the dress with some kind of bright accessory so I don't look Amish. Or like a storybook witch, I suppose that's another black-dress stereotype. (At least he didn't say THAT.)

(Oh, who am I kidding. I probably will store the leftover yarn in my leftover yarn box and never do anything with it, just like all the other leftover-from-sweaters-and-shawls-and-socks yarn I have, and eventually give it away to a teacher to use with her students for crafts).

I had the beginnings of a migraine this morning so I took an Excedrin Migraine at lunch. It has caffeine in it. I'm sensitive to caffeine. Can you tell?

I really really really need to get back to writing that paper review I'm supposed to be doing right now.