Walking and Knitting

Still working on the Christmas presents. Still wanting to knit things that are not Christmas presents. Sigh.

Really, it's not that bad. I'm loving one of the illusion knits I'm working on, the keychains are quick and adorable, and I just started a baby sweater that is flying off the needles. It's just the scarf that is, like many scarves, long and boring, and it has a pattern that is just complex enough to have me checking the pattern all the time so it's not mindless, and just boring enough that the fact that I have to look at the pattern annoys me. It has been my carry-along project, but I've been not really knitting on it, just carrying it around recently due to project boredom:

Want to make people look at you like you're crazy? Knit a scarf like this one that is ostensibly a simple striped pattern, and then go to check the pattern and count stitches. I found the confusion to be quite amusing! It's another illusion scarf, the last of four I'm knitting for Christmas, and rather than motoring through because the end (of the scarves at least) is in sight, I'm just about halfway done and dawdling.

In order to make better progress on the Christmas front, I've switched up to a nice little DK weight baby sweater for my nephew, and it's really coming along quickly:

One sleeve done (instead of swatching, I start the sleeve and rip it out if it isn't working), and the body over 2" so far. That's really good because I had the sleeve plus the first row of the body done this morning and only worked on it while walking around today. Hopefully the quick sweater will give me the boost I need to enjoy working on the scarf again, or at least get me motivated to finish it!

A note on the bags - a supermarket just opened near us and gave away these cute little bags for their opening weekend. I got two, and love how they have a little pocket that's perfect for my iPod and fit a carry-along knitting project nicely. My typical bag is suffering from a broken zipper pull, so these bags have come in handy. They say "refill our green earth" and I'm not exactly sure what they're going for there, but I do like the bags!