knit two, purl two...

that seems to be the mantra going over and over in my head.

i realize now, that i probably should have started some of my xmas knitting projects a lot sooner than i already have, but hindsight is 20/20, what can you do? i am just rolling with it and hoping that i can crank out what i would like to by the time gift giving rolls around. this year has been a roller coaster with ups and downs (a *lot* of downs) and sometimes the motivation isn't always there.

so far...i have begun work on 2 projects that will be given away as xmas gifts. one one (the "knit two, purl two" project), i figure i'm about 1/3 done on it. i made a little more progress on it just before coming to the computer to blog about it.  for the other project, i started it with this beautiful yarn by Noro that i had only bought 2 balls of. yesterday, i went back to the yarn shop i got it at, hoping that they would at least have the same color if not the same dye lot, but lo and behold! luck was with me as not only did the shop have the same color, but the same dye lot as the 2 balls i already had. so i purchased 3 more, completely satisfied that i would now have enough to finish the project.

i told myself that i would not start any more projects for xmas until at least one of the two was completed, and i'm anxious to get back to them. a couple of weeks back, i saw that one of my favorite yarns by Lion, the Jiffy, was on sale at Joann. it had been at least a few months since i had been to any Joann...regardless of which shop i'd been to, the yarn selection (for the yarns i like, anyway) has always been less than spectacular.  so i went to Joann, and i had to re-learn the layout of the whole store as they had completely renovated the interior, along with the layout. on my first pass through the yarns, i didn't see that yarn at all, and was about to get angry that why would they not have any of the yarn that they advertised on sale?! and wandered through other sections to get a feel for where everything was.  then i came back to the yarns and paid more attention, and found the Jiffy yarns! i bought out what they had of the pearl grey and violet, and bought some burgundy, and also one ball each of a pretty girly pastel mix and a heather blue. that night, i got home and pulled out a small notebook to make notes of the various projects, and now i can't find the notebook! go figure. it'll turn up soon enough, i'm sure.

to stray away from the knitting, i now realize i need a new digital camera. a few years ago, i purchased the Sony Cybershot and was happy with it, but on a recent outing to Disneyland with some friends, i realized that something was off. at first i thought it was the LCD, but the more my friends and i played around with it, the more we figured something was wrong either internally or in the lens. so i've been shopping around for a new digital camera. while i love the cybershot, i think my next camera will be the Panasonic Lumix.

Lumix

it boasts of a Leica lens and 7.2 mega-pixels. that's better than what i had on the cybershot. i need to get it soon....before the holidays roll in...