A new bag, a cardi, and more yarn...oh my

I splurged my last visit, or rather visit(s), to the my LYS, and not really visits per say, but my last couple of shifts.

The awesome LYS owner and friend always has such a great eye for notions and bags and she's not failed again.  I had been eyeing these gorgeous new Lantern Moon bags everytime I was at work, there perfect for a nice day at the beach.

I finally broke down and picked one up.

I love it!  The handles are soft and nice and wide to handle the full loads of the whatever you put in it.  There's full inner pockets from top of the bag down to the base around the entire bag.  It's perfect for stashing yarn, clothes, food, you name it.  It'll definitely be used this summer come beach visits.  There's only 1 of these left, not in the green I got but in a very lovely pink.  I'm a green gal but the pink is very nice too. 

Onto my other splurge, new yarn, Vita, cast on for a new summer Cardi, one to schlepp along for those breezy summer nights.  We have a sample at the shop in O'Wool yarn, but I went with Vita, a recycled wool & cashmere blend.  The cashmere is suttle, not overwhelming at all, not that there's a problem with cashmere, I love it, but for summer you'd want something not as warm as cashmere.  

The beginning of the pattern is about 9 inches of 2x2 ribbing followed by another 4 or so inches of stockinette st.  So far a pretty fast pattern, I can't wait to have this finished to carry with me.

Lastly I bought a couple more skeins/balls of Cotton Candy yarn for the Hearts blanket.

I also bought 2 new books, one of which has some really cool patterns in it, but I was too lazy and forgot to take pictures so I'll share later this week.  Who knows, maybe I'll have cast on a pattern from one of the books or maybe two of them as well! 

And knits move on

My knitting over the past few months has been rather erratic, I'm all over the board with mini-knits to large full on sweater knits.  Not that I'm complaining, I do love the variety in the knits, and crochets lately but sometimes I sit back and really want to focus on more fulfulling knitting. 

At this point in my knitting reportoire I've grown to really enjoy the satisfaction of edgy, elegant, intricate, creative patterns.  So what gets in the way of me knitting all that my heart desires? 

My Harry Potter escapades!  Yes, I'm a HP fan, along with being a Twilight fan.  There's a fantastic group on Rav that is HP themed and there's actually classes per month turning in knitting and crocheting items.  It's rather fun actually, but it can actually be pretty busy as well.  So here are a few gallery pictures of FO's from January and February.

In other areas I did finish the lovely Rosamund Cardi for Pico Accuardi Dyeworks at Stitches West 2011

This is the last picture I took of Rosamund (this is knit in Guiseppe "thick/thin" yarn from PAD), I should be getting a complete picture soon, but it turned out gorgeous!

I also started a new Acorns sweater, using lovely  PAD yarn in Negro con Rojo, it's absolutely lovely!

Now onto Solstice Slip socks, I was actually done with these babies but frogged because I felt they were too long.  So now I'll pick this up again to make the right length.  The heel was literally about 1.5 or 2 inches of extra length of the foot, vastly threw off my length!

I'll also be starting these cute Arista Gauntlets, another great one from PAD

And finally I've started a new Cotton Candy Hearts Blankie, using Cotton Candy yarn.  It's all eco and all soft cotton.  Feels so silky and soft knit up.  I believe this will be a present for one of my nieces, definitely not for me!

Phew! Ok see you Wednesday!  Time to get back on track with all my duties, I do believe time has been off lately. 

Happy Monday!