Bored Stiff.

This will probably be boring for ya'll too because I can't post any pictures. Patrick left for Dublin / London on Friday & took our camera with him so I can't take photos for my blog - THE NERVE! What, is the once in a lifetime trip pictures more important than my knitting progress? Ha. Seriously, I'm not excited about one thing I am knitting: Here is what I have OTN:
* Rowan Beth sweater. It's not so much that I am bored with it than that I'm stuck & paralyzed with fear that I'm going to have to frog the whole thing so I haven't progressed at all. I have another private lesson with Alissa on July 10th so I really need to be done with the back by then. I'll try to work on it.
* Pink Left Leaning Decrease lace scarf for donation to the Breast Cancer scarf drive. It is the pattern we were giving in my lace class at Fiber Fest to further understand....any guesses? Left leaning decreases!!!! I do like it but I just can't concentrate on it right now & I have no good excuse.
* Hobby Lobby had Sugar n Cream cotton on sale for 0.99 last week so I went & bought a chunk of it to make new dishclothes for my Mom as a house warming present. I folded clothes for her when I was home in May & I told her she was in NO way to bring those dish cloths / towels into her new house! I think it's just one of those things that we as women pay no attention to & never buy new for ourselves. So I'm working on a dishcloth with an apple motif that was designed by Rainy - a girl on my LoneStar Knitters yahoo list - the design is FANTASTIC. I have never worked with cotton & am not sure how I'm feeling about it. I literally just started it about, oh, 5 rows ago, so I'm still struggling to work with yarn that doesn't have much stretch.

I finished the second pinwheel baby blanket - pictures to follow. I am pretty pleased with it despite the fact that after about an inch of seed stitch border it still curls a little. I really don't think the baby will mind either.

Now to my recent book fetish. I don't know what in the world is wrong with me but in the past 3 weeks or so I have added quite a few knitting books to my library. As if I didn't have enough already (these are in addition to my many magazines). I joined a craft book club (crafterschoice.com in case you care) so 5 of these were from that & they were uber cheap. Here is what I have gotten:
* One Skein by Leigh Radford
* Scarf Style - editted by Pam Allen (fav of all these for sure - changed the way I see scarves)
* 200 Knitted Blocks by Jan Eaton - I was deadly curious & figure I'll use this eventually
* At Knit's End - Stephanie Pearl-McPhee - hysterical.
* Modular Knits by Iris Schreier
* Vogue Knitting from Amazon - I LOVE it. I am highly impressed & it's worth the hype. Terrific design section.
* Loop-d-Loop by Teva Durham - for one pattern that I wanted that was $6 but I could buy the book on ebay for $11 shipped. I mean really - no question what you should do. I like several things in there.
* Stitch N Bitch Nation by Debbie Stoller - picked up at The Woolie Ewe yesterday. The BEST discussion on adjusting a pattern for yarn substitions & pattern mod that I've seen yet. I am starting to study now!
Thus my lack of recent knitting. I've been reading about knitting more than I've actually been knitting. I know that sounds wrong, but it's just true.

So that's what I'm up to. I'll post pictures just as soon as I get my camera back & download those...cultural experience / pub crawling pictures from the other side of the pond! BTW - I did think to remind him that yarn makes a great souvenir. I've since searched & though I doubt he'll go seek out a yarn store (since I also picked out some Celtic jewelry) but maybe maybe maybe he'll run across something at a street vendor? Apparently knitting as a hobby has not caught on in Dublin so you actually have to search for yarn, you just don't trip over it as I imagined. I'll let you know!