We were out of regular hot cocoa, so I had a cup of the sugar-free kind at my office (artificially sweetened with Splenda / sucralose) because I realllllly wanted some hot cocoa. It’s cold and rainy, perfect cocoa weather.

Headache set in about an hour after drinking it.

Stupid Splenda.

Look like it’s confirmed: I can’t have that stuff. It’s a shame, because I don’t like the taste of the pink or blue sweeteners (saccharin and aspartame, respectively) and I’m rather against artificial sweeteners in general due to their ‘artificial-ness’, and stevia causes me a bit of intestinal upset (which is odd because it’s often used to soothe intestinal upset)…  It’s frustrating, to say the least.

Finished the hat Tuesday night. So cute! Now to get it to the wee niece before Halloween.

This was knit with Cascade 220 superwash wool, and used very little of it…  I could probably get four (baby) hats out of the orange. Hmm…

The pattern is the Berry Baby Hat (Ravelry link) and worked up easily. I added the rows of slipped rib every 8th stitch to give it a little more dimension.

(sorry for the tiny picture, was taken with my iphone)

What could be cuter than a tiny hat shaped like a pumpkin? Only the tiny head that the hat is intended for! Today I started an impulse project. It’s a quick knit; I’m already halfway done:

Got two shawls on the needles – an alpaca one that is almost done. I’m working on the edge:

And a wool one that I can’t show you because it’s a surprise for someone.

Instead, here is another picture of Snickerdoodle in her box.

And here’s my Chloe, who is really getting grey:

And on the cute scale, I caught my 16-year old watching a movie the other day with an extra sidekick:

I am always amused at how seriously cats take boxes. This box is in the dining room and I made the mistake of putting (non-cat) stuff into the box, despite the fact that the cat had claimed said box as her own several days earlier. I finally got the hint (cranky kitty is loud and annoying) and emptied the box. Peace has been restored.

For my birthday I received this from a friend:

It’s beautiful, and soft, and cushy, and I’ve never had the pleasure of knitting with Malabrigo before but it only took me about fifteen minutes to decide that it was going to be a hat. A couple days later, it looked like this:

Today, it’s all done but I don’t have a picture yet. This is an Amanda Hat, knit on size 9’s and it took about 2/3 of the skein. Look at the neat striping of the colors.

I think the rest of the skein might become an ear warmer. Two gifts in one!  Three, if you count the hours of wonderful knitting opportunity.

Whoa – sorry about the blog silence this past week. Here’s a quick update on what I’ve been up to over the past seven days:

I attended a baby shower for a friend of mine. This is the wee sweater I knit for her but couldn’t previously show you in case she wandered across my blog:

I also knit a bunch of monsters, which are currently laying claim on my apple bowl.

Last week at Knit Night I cast on a Truly Tasha shawl in some scrumptious alpaca (it’s now bigger than in this pic). This is a very easy pattern that I can take along with me because it’s mostly just garter stitch; the loose edge stitches are picked up later for a knitted on border.

I started some short socks to keep the alpaca shawl company in my commute bag:

And not to be deterred by a run of start-itis, I also cast on a Faro Easy Shawl with some yarn I frogged from a shawl that I wasn’t happy with. Love the yarn, but I was trying to be tricky with my own shaping and it just didn’t work out… This time I’m following a pattern. This is evening movie knitting (shown below is what I got done during “Big Fish”); it does have some lace but it’s charted out nicely.

I also seamed up the Celtic Vest that I knit and bought a shawl pin for it on Etsy.

I’ve been enjoying my morning walks to the office because fall is here and the Pike Place Market is alive with the colors of Autumn.

At work I am training a new bookkeeper, and last weekend I packaged and labeled a bunch of soap for an upcoming craft show (and made lip balms and other bath goodies for said craft show), which is this weekend.

Oh — and I had a hot date on Monday,  which was my birthday!

The heater kicked on last night, a sure sign that Autumn has arrived. The cat approves.

Dear world;
Hi! What’s new? A bit of a change in the weather around here, lots of gift knitting, some craft show prep, and the usual assortment of family duties for me. You know, the same old stuff.

This is Maddox. He’s a very good guard monster, keeping my tomatoes safe from evil fruit flies.

Maddox is my first knit toy – though I hesitate to call him a toy. He stands about 9″ tall, but he has a big personality. Soon, Maddox will be joined by Olivia the Audacious.

(patterns by Rebecca Danger – check out her Etsy store!)