on my needles

Ok, so here's what I'm up to as of today:

1. still working on the knit food for my friends. needed to make 16 slices of pizza, have 8 knit and 5 or 6 of them sewn together. fruit and veggies almost done, still need to make corn (waiting on my yarn from knitpicks, should be here early next week) and carrot. need to finish 3 sets of sushi but those are quick, started working on them today. I think I overcommitted myself but luckily none of my friends were/are in a rush. I'm getting there, I promise gals! My goal was to have it done by the 15th but ha ha ha, its not. So we'll move that deadline to the end of the month!

2. Secret of the Stole 2 started today, it is my first knit along. It looks like the first "Clue" is pretty quick and easy, a few people already have theirs done. I'm happy if I have it done by next Friday when the next clue is released. I have WONDERFUL yarn for this, mom got me a few skeins of knitpicks alpaca cloud for Christmas in "mist heather", a very very light purple. SOOOOOOOO soft and yummy to work with! I did the swatch for the knit along a few weeks ago when they released it and its been sitting on my desk since then so I could pet it LOL. I can't wait until the whole thing is done, but as they're only releasing a segment of the pattern each week it won't be done until at least March. But that's OK, its a no pressure project that is just for me. I need to do more knitting for myself :-)

3. speaking of knitting for myself, my second pair of socks are coming along, although slowly but that is intentional. They have become a fallback project for when I want to do some mindless knitting, I still have a few inches of stockinette to go before decreasing for the toe. Great news though---THEY FIT! LOL. They are a tiny bit snug, I've noticed that I've been knitting tighter than normal on these and I figured out why. The first few stitches you HAVE to pull tight so you don't get ladders in between needles. Well, I've been pulling a bit toooooo tight, then continuing to pull across the row. But all in all they fit, and the heels turned out nicely so I'm thrilled to death. no holes in the corners of the heels, no ladders thus far, what more could I ask for? for my next pair of socks I'm going to do either a beaded pair or a lace pair, both patterns are in "knitting circles around socks" For Christmas my mom also got me the pallette sampler from knitpicks, so I ordered 2 more skeins of it in a purple and a light pink so I could do socks with them, since it looks like one ball won't be enough for a whole pair. I'm not going to do that with the whole pack though, I'm thinking of doing striped socks with a lot of it.

4. Like I need another project--I started a placemat for Brendan today. it is the first pattern I've paid to download, I usually either get pattern books or freebies. It is cute though, here it is:http://www.knitsbyrachel.com/page55.html I kinda wish it was charted but I'm using a magnet board to keep track of where I am so it is working.

once I finish something, maybe after I finish the knit food I'm going to start a bedding set for my daughter. I took the angel preemie hat pattern and transposed the angel part of it to a flat pattern and figured out how to toggle it in staggered rows of angels for a blanket, I'm going to do a twin sized one. Included in my order from knitpicks that is arriving next week is several more balls of their twist in cotton candy. GEORGEOUS yarn. I was going to do the blanket out of just that, but it isn't super soft and it was working up to be a small-ish guage and I wanted a quicker project. I double stranded it with the lilac color of Caron's simply soft and swatched it on size 11s instead of 6s, and I liked it much better. Still get the shine and sparkle from the twist but the softness of the caron. It will make a great comforter for a twin sized bed, and I will post the pattern along with photos when i start it. I will also make a lace pillow inlay (from the book "weekend knitting") with just the twist and maybe a curtain or vallence of some sort. I have plenty of time for all of this since her 2nd birthday is at the end of april and she's still in her crib. I'm thinking it needs to be done by the time we move in August. So yeah, plenty of time.

OK, so that's whats on my needles. What are you working on?