ugh, I ate too much chocolate today and now I'm cranky. Also I'm cranky because I got 29 rows into my lace shawl and then made some weird mistake that I couldn't figure out and ended up frogging the whole thing in frustration.

I did, however, finally finish something:
Sam's fingerless gloves, which, you may recall I finished knitting a couple weeks ago, and then just carried around in my bag pretending that the ends were going to weave themselves in, and now officially finished.



They look pretty good on my hands, don't you think? they feel devine, too. too bad it was like 65 degrees out today...


I needed a quick, portable knit, and I happened to have an extra skein of Cashmerino.... so I cast on yesterday morning and by this afternoon I present: Fetching!



I took a bit of a chance... I had only 1 skein + a few yards leftover from the scarf I made for my friend. The pattern calls for one skein, but notes that some people have needed extra. Since I bought the yarn in Pennsylvania and the dye lot was "5" I didn't have a lot of hope of getting more yarn and just thought I'd have to fudge it at the end if need be.

I made it on less than one skein without modifying the pattern at all... but man, it was close!
This is the leftovers (with sheep measuring tape for context):



I hope that I actually wear them. I'm not entirely convinced that I'm cool enough to pull off fingerless mitts. But they are pretty and soft and I can use my iPod while wearing them... so I'm willing to give it a whirl.

I made a purchase on Wednesday which has already changed my knitting life. After the one millionth time of digging through my bags o' stash hunting for needles, I reached my limit and bought:


Needle cases!
The larger one is Lantern Moon and is for my straight needles. The smaller is Elizabeth Austen and is for my circular needles (which I never imagined could actually be stored in an organized fashion). I love them both; they make me happy. Happy and organized!

Last night I took my very first ever knitting class. As a "self-taught" knitter, I was a little bit skeptical about the whole "class" thing, but after falling madly in love with lace knitting and deciding that there might not be enough online knitting videos in the world that could teach me how to fix that missed yarn over, I decided to take a class at Knit Happens by Michael Del Vecchio.
It was so fun! For starters, I was happy to find that not only am I not the most remedial knitter in the class... indeed, I might actually be the star student (as the only one who has ever done lace before). Anyway, before my head explodes, it is good to note that I'm not exactly a lace-knitting genius (um, which is why I'm in the class, right?)

In the class, we're making a shawl from Folk Shawls



Here are my swatches from class:





Not perfect, but not too shabby...

And here is the shawl that I worked on today... before I messed up and frogged it...



The nicest thing about taking a class is... you have HOMEWORK of the KNITTING VARIETY! I can't feel bad about doing homework, now can I?