Pretty good knitting progress happening here - the fingerless gloves will be completed tonight (mark my words!) and I may even do the finishing right away (instead of waiting an eternity, like usual).
Pictures to come later this evening, or tomorrow morning at the latest.

A few other things happening in my knitting world:

(1) You've heard about the Blue Moon Fiber Arts bank disaster, right? Well, prior to this nonsense, I knew very little (okay, almost nothing) about the Rockin Sock Club. But, me being... well, easily angered on behalf of the fiber-loving world, as soon as I read about it I felt immediately compelled to put myself on the waitlist for the Rockin Sock Club. A bit of time passed, spots opened up, I shelled out $200+ (let's not talk about it), and now I'm a proud Rockin Sock Club member. Nevermind that I've never in my life knit a sock. For that kind of money, I damn well am about to become the most awesome sock knitter in the history of the world. I got the first email newsletter today, and the first shipment goes out sometime the week of Feb 26th.

(2) The Law Revue show cast is knitter-heavy. I love it. Tonight I'm going to try to get some pictures of all my happy little knitter friends to show you.

(3) I had to order a book for a paper I'm writing (okay, so, I probably really don't need the book, but I'm a nerd and I find myself suddenly incredibly interested in the Iran Hostage Crisis) from Amazon. Well, obviously I was going to order something else so that I qualified for super saver shipping. I, uh, ordered two somethings: Scarf Style (one quick skim through confirms that I love it already) and Stephanie Pearl-McPhee's Yarn Harlot: the Secret Life of a Knitter. These books arrived last night. It is now 7pm, and I had a full day of law school. I am on page 107 of the Yarn Harlot book because it is freaking hilarious.


Now, I'm giving Amanda a little bit of a shout-out here, because as far as I can tell, she's the only one reading my blog (i'm pretty okay with that. my sources tell me that the average readership of any blog is a whopping 1 person, so i'm right on par). This just means that I get to give my one reader a lot of attention and answer her comment in full.
I've never worked with Araucania Yarns, but I went to the website and they certainly look lovely. As far as picking a project, here's my suggestion: if you haven't fully explored the online knitting world, this would be a good time to do so. There are an absolute plethora of beautiful patterns available online for free. From my 30 seconds of googling, it seems like Pehuen is a cotton worsted weight yarn. That's good news because worsted weight is pretty universal - you could make almost anything out of it!

Where to start, you ask? Here are a few of my favorite places to look for patterns:
Knitty (check out the "archive" for patterns from past issues - they are categorized by type of item and also by difficulty level)
Mag Knits (same deal as above)

in terms of suggestions for what to knit, I think it depends greatly on how much of this yarn you have.
only one skein? this fingerless mitt pattern is a big hit in the knitting world, or try this head wrap. or, learn how to knit mittens on dpns (double pointed needles) with this super-easy mitten pattern!
a few skeins to work with? jazz up the boring scarf experience with some cables and the irish hiking scarf or natty. or try this short-row scarf (the pattern calls for bulky weight, but you will get a slightly narrower version by using worsted weight - luckily with a scarf, gauge is hardly important)

another good place to look for free patterns online is at some of the online yarn shops like knitpicks.com or elann.com - these retailers offer some free patterns to try to entice you into buying their yarns.

whatever you decide to knit, don't forget to tell me how it goes!

as for "how i got so good".... egad! you should see what some people can knit! i'm an adventurous intermediate knitter, at best, and almost completely self-taught (but thanks to Erin for getting me started!). to be honest, the thing that i love the most about knitting is learning new things, and i'm a bit "competitive". i use a lot of online tutorials (try: knittinghelp.com - they have awesome videos) and i try a lot of new things. sometimes, i get in over my head, but sometimes i surprise myself.

i am about to take a knitting plunge, though. i'm going to take a class. Michael Del Vecchio (of Knitting With Balls) lives in DC (he's in my knitting group!) and teaches a lace knitting class at Knit Happens. I think I'm going to sign up because I recently fell head over heals with lace, but I may have finally reached the point where teaching myself becomes counter productive; good old fashioned lessons are in order, I think!

wow, this is too long. i'll try to make it less boring by adding some pictures when i get home later!