I can feel the home straight! Diamond Stitch Sweater.

YAY!

I am approximately 5 rows from the sleeve cap shaping on the two sleeves (both being done at the same time) for the Diamond Stitch Sweater from Vintage Knits.

Then I just have the top section (arm scythes up) of the front, and blocking and seaming. I can *smell* the finish.

I will say one thing about knitting in the round to the arm holes, it makes the other bits just breeze by!

I even stayed up late to try to get it done. I'm on my last ball, and trying to not get paranoid about not having enough yarn.

...

No, really. It'll be fine.

...

[hyperventilates a little]

I'll let you know, ok?

My yarn's having an identity crisis....

Remember that hand-dyed blue 3ply yarn from the Royal Show that didn't want to be that entrelac?

Well....

While it seems to be working in a technical sense, it's just too thin (as in thickness, not width) to be a suitable clapotis and I doubt I have enough to make a wrap at any rate. On the plus side, I do like the Clapotis pattern. God knows what it will end up being, I have no idea.

I am, it seems, very much in the mood to start a new project.

I must be. I did a stocktake of my stash.

Man, I have a lot of trash.

I mean that in the literal (a lot of acrylics and novelty odd balls for gift knitting) and more tangential sense (a lot of odd balls in miss-matched yarns and weights of minimal use).

I have one large and one small plastic tubs full of yarn.

Other than enough yarn for 6 pairs of socks (though sadly, none like Clementine's fabulous Cherry Tree Hill). Nice, but ....

Of the yarn in which I have more than one ball of a type I have :

• 3 and a bit balls of purplish-grey Zara (the colour doesn't suit me, and the rest of it became a fabulous felted bag for my mum)
• 10 balls of bright red scarlet Zara (in progress into being knitted into a ribbed jumper for Jasi. Stalled due to it being summer and me waiting a little longer to see just how tall she gets)
• About 12 balls in various ice-cream colours (pink, lime, pale blue, teal, taupe etc) Katia Mississippi. (great yarn but single balls of most colours means its firmly in the baby-gift realm).
• That Anny Blatt scarlet silk. Am considering (still) knitting the top Lupinbunny knitted, but then had a dream a few nights ago where I dreamt the perfect thing to knit with it. Can I remember anything about the dream-top now? Of course not.
  

That's it! Everything else is single balls of yarn. That don't work together.



I think I want to knit Scarlet as my Christmas-gift-money-knit (Adam's other gift to me) but I need to work out what is the cheapest way to get the yarn - online or local ordering.

...

Still deciding. I got all excited by Rogue, and by that Fairaisle jumper from the Winter Vogue Knitting just gone... and many others.

Unfortunately, I can't do that thing I see people doing (and discussing) online where they love a pattern so they run out and but the yarn for it. Money being a little too tight for that, my knitting generally is on a one-project-buy-at-a-time thing.

Not that I always finish quickly. On the needles I have:

• a second sock in a yarn colourway I don't like. I tell myself I should finish and then over-dye them in purple or something.
• Jasmine's red jumper for next winter
• a scarf in a pretty variegated blue .... acrylic... that was the first actual object I ever knitted (but obviously not the first finished).
• the diamond stitch top

[stops and considers] I'm rambling. Will stop now.