woohoo! i made myself something...  naughty, naughty me...  especially since it's so close to christmas...  what was i thinking!  this is made from red heart cozy wool in cardinal.  what beautiful stuff to work with...  nice and chunky, and it really shows stitch definition well.  the colour in this pic looks a little orangey, but it's actually a nice vibrant rich red colour. 

i did it using a braided cable pattern from knitty. and i just bracketed it with six stitches on each side of double seed stitch.  i was a bit worried that the back of the scarf would be intolerably ugly, but it really isn't too bad.  i think that the double seed stitch makes it nicely tolerable.  i would post the pattern in its entirety, but al has it now...

This is supposed to be a close up of the stitching, but the lighting is off...  and i don't really know how to fix it!  aaaaaa!!!  help!

at first when i was working on the pattern, i was just marking off my rows on the piece of paper i had the pattern written on....  it was sure making a mess of things, and not very fast either...  al leant me her row counter (i'm thinking these will make some great gifts!)(thanks, manda!), and all was hunky dory after that!  the only trick is to remember which time you should be keeping your cable loops forward, and which time they should be back.  i did find a neat way to cable without a cable needle, but i found it a bit awkward...  so, instead i slipped my cable stitches onto the needle, knit the next three, then slipped them from the cable needle back onto my knitting needle.  kept the cable nice and even.  (but, can you see the mistake??)

so, now it's onto gramma's scarf, which i am still debating on...  not sure what i'm going to do with it yet!  all the lace patterns i've tried have way too much counting to work on when the kidlets are up.... 

darned kidlets, looking for attention when i'm trying to knit!  ;)

ja and i went shopping today.  WITH. OUT. ANY. CHILDREN.  i know, i can hardly believe it myself.  it was so weird, i kept thinking i had to smack someone's hand, but there was only ja!  and he hardly whined at all!

so, what were ja and i doing on this gloriously free from the children couple of hours?  we were shoe shopping for me, winter coat shopping for him.  i am just about desperate for a new pair of shoes.  the pair of shoes that i currently have been wearing cause my baby toe to convulse when i put them on...  not so good when you're heading off to the park for the day.

now, this shoe thing has been a huge dilemma for me.  do i cheap out, (again) and have to replace a pair of shoes next season?  or do i just go wild and get the ones that i really like?  can i say here how much i love my husband??  i dragged him everywhere today, found nothing that i liked, and ended up back where we started.  and, all along he kept telling me to get these expensive ones!  now, i don't know if that's because he was tired of me dragging him into every shoe store in the city, or if it's because he really liked them.  so, he made me order them in a size 10...  we'll be trying them on on tuesday.

it's funny though, just a couple of years ago, i wouldn't have really thought twice about buying these shoes...  but now...  it's a bit of a process i've had to work through.  there's a huge guilt factor about buying myself new shoes.  it's really weird, cause i definitely love shoes.  but, i am getting new shoes, and i hereby declare that i will feel guilty no longer.

unfortunately, we didn't find any winter coats in the right size.  the zipper in ja's old coat is completely shot, and after borrowing len's coat last season, we kind of think it's time he had his own.  poor len almost froze last year!  ;)

on another up note, i got some red heart cozy wool to make myself something...  gotta get back in the creating groove...  and i am making something similar to this, although mine is, of course, a bit different.  i ADORE this wool!  it is so nice to work with, and not too badly priced for something with wool content.  another nice thing?  because it's a super bulk, it works up really quickly.  i can't wait until it's finished and it's cold enough to wear it.  the colour i got is cardinal, and man is it ever a rich red.  beautiful.

so, i guess, all in all it's been a successful day...  got away from the kidlets...  spent some time with the hubby....  ate mexican mash for dinner...  pocahontas is on tv tonight....  ahh yes, it is a good day.