Color of the day

Knitting has recently become somewhat compulsive for me-- partly because I wanted to finish a lot of Xmas knitting and partly now force of habit. I hardly read anything... It took a month to finish the last book I read and the magazines languish next to the couch sometimes for months before being touched. (This changed a little yesterday when Katrina showed up at my house with EZ's Knitter's Almanac which I almost finished before bed last night, so I guess the reading just needs to be about knitting, too.) Anyway, here's what's on the needles, or recently off of them:

My cousin sent me two skeins of wool that I decided to turn into arm warmers. Normally, I would knit these from the bottom up, but since I wanted to use the whole skein and not knit a thumb, I went from the top down, left a thumb hole, and knit until I ran out of wool, so they are a nice elbow length. However, I can't decide what I think of the colorway. It isn't really me. And it keeps making me think of Trix in chocolate milk. The jury's still out.

This is the cowl that I designed as a store pattern. It is a feather and fan stitch pattern that makes little scallops. Even though I designed the pattern, I am still not following it properly because I didn't want it to be as wide as the original one I made. So I left out one pattern repeat. I'm not sure why I'm making this since i didn't really enjoy making it last time, but the result is nice and it's an easy project to keep in my purse for emergency knitting.

And here are the socks I started yesterday. I love my brown mary janes, but all my socks are too brightly colored and clash, so I'm making this neutral stripe. Not very exciting, but functional.

And this little lovely is the unbearably soft alpaca yarn my mother gave me for Xmas as part of a shawl kit. I have never made a shawl, but was thinking about it, and now the decision has been very nicely and luxuriously made for me. Can't wait to get this one on the needles. I just need to get the needles first...

And since I'm quite sure you've seen enough brown today...

These are the arm warmers I designed for Kaci. It was hard to part with them. She always signs her emails with X's and O's so I used this cable to represent that. It isn't a true x and o cable, but I liked it.

Unfortunately, though, I was in such a rush to wrap gifts that you will just have to imagine the felted pouch I made for Christine and the headband I made for Amanda (both my design) and the hat, scarf and skirt set I made for Lydia's American Girl dolls.