Yarn Swap!

I checked out the yarn swap at one of the local yarn stores with my knitting group friends, Cynical Knitting Gal and Chicago Sarah. I managed not only to unload some of the stash that I just wasn't going to use but also picked up one of the Tulip cardigan kits that the Yarn Harlot has mentioned a few times. I guess that I picked up one of the "boy" kits, but I think that it looks perfect for either a boy or girl. I got a little sappy when I chose it today as I have decided that it will be the first sweater for the baby that Mrs. Ha-Ha and I are looking forward to welcoming into our family someday in the relatively near future...To top it all off, it was way discounted because of all the yarn that I contributed to the swap! I like how that worked out for me...:)

So, as I mentioned yesterday or whenever I wrote last (the memory is short over the weekend), Cynical Knitting Gal very kindly offered to take pictures of my works in progress before we headed to the swap today. So, here goes (wow, can you believe that you're actually going to be able to see what I talk about! Pretty novel idea!)...This is the Wren wrap sweater in Lion Brand Cotton Ease, which as you can see has a LONG way to go...I'm sure that I'll get back to it, but I'm also pretty confident that my interest is going to continue to lag for a while as we approach (please let it be soon) cooler weather.

Next up are the socks that I am making for Mrs. Ha-Ha. They were originally meant to be for me, but they ended up being too small in the heel. Next time around I'm going to have to make a deeper short row heel (that 50% of stitches doesn't quite seem to cut it for my heel!)...

Here's the start of a sock for my brother, which I will likely be ripping out in the near future. Don't worry, little brother, you're still going to be getting socks, but I think that I'm going to do them over from the toe up. When you have a brother with size 13 or 14 feet (can't remember which off the top of my head), then it's a good idea to stretch the yarn as far as you can!

I haven't gotten very far on the baby hat and booties as you can see in this next picture. I've literally gotten as far as casting on about 3/4 of the stitches for the hat. The SSCCG has just been taking too much of my time to worry about focusing on gifts for a baby that will be born in December. There's plenty of time to worry about those gifts later...

And finally, we have the SSCCG. Mrs. Ha-Ha assures me that neither of the recipients of this gift are even aware of the existence of this blog, so I have decided to post pictures of this mammoth WIP. It's the Artful Afghan pattern from Lion Brand (my version is closest to the second picture down the page), but I am using various colors of Encore Worsted instead of the Wool-Ease that the pattern calls for. This is a pretty mindless pattern with fun results, though I do think a good blocking will make it that much better!

Well, I think that I will save the rest of the pictures for another day. I want to spread out this photo fun for at least a few days...See you soon!