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Oh, the squishing!

Intense mustard yellow
Just had lunch with one of my knitting buddies who is beginning to dye her own yarns - and of course, she let me squish and ooh and aah over her latest handiwork....not to mention bring home a few skeins to play around with!  I'm loving these shaded solids....not sure what designs I'll create with them, but rest assured I'll keep you posted. 

Beautiful variegated blues
Meanwhile, I'll probably have a new design ready to post by the end of the week, and with any luck, an FO or two!  Despite the tantalizing yarns trying to lure me into casting on for yet another project, I'm going to try to resist the urge until I get at least one or two things off the needles.  It's been weeks since I've touched my Koukla cardigan - also known as one of my Malabrigo March projects.  At this rate, it'll be done by next Malabrigo March!  Last week, in an attempt to rekindle my interest in knitting this lovely, lovely sweater, I finally made it to Soutache and picked out some fancy buttons.  Unfortunately, nearly a week later, I have yet to knit a single stitch.

Red buttons:  Koukla.
I suppose I've been distracted by the toy dinosaur I started last week at the first knitting class I've ever taken - my new Twitter buddy and local designer/teacher Alysson Dykhuizen of The Sweatshop of Love is putting on this fun little class at one of my favorite local coffee shops, New Wave Coffee.  You may find yourself wondering what I could have to learn at this point, with eight years of knitting under my belt and tons of completed toy projects....but the answer is, in the world of knitting, you never stop learning!  In this case, I picked up a few great finishing tips (which I'll blog about in a future post) during the course of the first class last Tuesday night - and tomorrow night, as we assemble the many pieces of this adorable toy, I expect to learn a few more.  Finishing has always been my weakest area in my opinion - so whenever I'm able to learn pointers to a) make finishing easier and b) make my FO look nicer through better technique, I'm all ears. 

Making progress!
Additionally, I've been working much more diligently on my Cookie A. socks started so long ago (January 15 of this year, to be exact).  The charts for the Stalagmite Socks are scary at first - but once I got into the zone, I found I barely had to consult the legend and could pretty much tell what needed to be cabled when, just by looking at the round below.  Last week I turned the heel, and as of right now, I'm nearly ready to start the toe shaping - with any luck, these babies should be done by the end of April!  Which is great, because I really need to deliver them to the person I'm knitting them for, before she thinks I totally forgot about them. 
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