Last bits of 2007

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas, and had a chance to relax, and maybe even get some knitting done. I sure had a good time, but the knitting part, well I didn't have much time for that. I did, however, get a nice gift card to my LYS from my coworkers. I was so surprised that they had thought of that! Not that there's anything wrong with getting a bottle of wine, or something like that, but yarn... for me that is a much more personal gift. I went to spend it yesterday, and here's what I got:
Zephyr silk/wool lace weight in three colors, for a scarf from the Icelandic Three Cornered and Long Shawls. I had to get started last night already, but I don't have a progress shot. Not that it looks like much, yet, as you start with 329 stitches, and it takes a while to get just 4-5 rows done...

Another new (to me) yarn I thought I'd try was Reynold's Soft Seawool:I'm going to use it for a pair of socks. It's a little thicker than what I usually use, but really squishy! Can't wait to get started with this one, too.

The other in-progress project is still Oblique:

I've got a good start on the second sleeve, but I'm running out of yarn... The yarn requirement in the pattern seemed low to begin with, but I thought I'd go with it. Now Webs is of course all sold out of this yarn, and I had to order 2 more balls from somewhere else for twice as high a price, and a different dye lot. Grr... Fortunately it's a variegated yarn, so I'm not terribly concerned about the dye lot issue. Just seems like such a waste to spend almost half as much for two balls as for the rest of the sweater together. But I'm still in love with the pattern, and I've got high hopes for it! I've read several people's comments about Veronik's patterns, and how they thought they were confusing and hard to follow. I haven't had any problems with this pattern and I think it is extremely clear and well written. I'm very tempted to buy her recent book.

As far as getting help with my knitting projects goes, I'm still doing good. Suzy is training to knit socks:

And I didn't even have to ask her...