The Joys of Finishing and Other Friday Ramblings.

Ah, yes, the joys of the backstitch and the mattress stitch once again fill the air chez Megan. Salina, she is finished. She is still in pieces and piles and replete with unwoven tails, but she is FINISHED (emphasis for all of you politically correct knitters, where finished means final, wearable product). And ack, as I was picking up the stitches for the collar and was knitting it 'round and 'round, I ran out of yarn. D'OH! With. Mere. Rows. To. Go. But hoorah! My swatch saved the day! Remembering that I had actually swatched for this project (*So* atypical of me...plan? ahead? No! Blindly charge forward and hope for the best!), so I got to unravelling the swatch and it turned out to be enough. PHEW. Crisis swiftly and decisively averted.

Let the seaming begin.


And here's a little sneak peek at the awesomeness-in-cute-sweater-form that is to come. Imminently.


And because I'm feeling insouciant on this Friday afternoon (so much so that I can use the word *insouciant* without a second thought of how pretentious that word actually is, despite my personal affection toward it), I'm throwing in a full facial reveal. Gasp! That's what I look like!


In other Friday news, I'd like to share my sadness that I was not able to sign up for the Knit Mitt Kit Swap. Boy, I really wanted to! I've been wanting a knitting swap buddy for awhile now (I see so many people in knitblogland who partake in the joys of giving and receiving of knitting-related goods with secret pals, and I want in on that action!), so I got very excited about the KMKS...especially because I've only ever made one pair of mittens and they were really fun, though really simple, and I've been looking to expand my mitten-knittin' lately. And I kept seeing knit pals of mine joyously signing up and filling out their questionnaires. The problem? Weellll...just the tiny (albeit exciting!) inconvenience that I will be away excavating in the UAE from December 18 to January 20. And that completely conflicts with the KMKS. So, in conciliatory zeal, I'm buying myself my own darned kit (two, in fact, this! and this!), and I'm knittin' my own darned mitts. It doesn't solve the fact that I'm still out of the secret pal loop, but I'll have the other part of the fun...the knitting of mittens. And I just want to say, THRUMS! Or, to my boyfriend's dismay these days, TTHHHHHHRRRUUUUUUUUUUUUMMS! (I've been sorta boisterous and loud about my thrum excitement in the past few days, and we *do* have sort of a small apartment...he's such a good sport about indulging my knitting craziness.)

And, in the spirit of divulgence, here's a little flash of some things I've been itchin' to throw on the needles:



I heart aquaknits' new sock yarn, available at sKNITches. Perhaps a new fetish. Perhaps.


Chromatic sport-weight sock yarn in the *Scream* colorway.


Chromatic sport-weight sock yarn in the *Nest Egg* colorway.
Lovely, no?

And that's a wrap. Stay tuned for a weekend Salina finale.