odds and ends

Check out this cutie!

Now that fall is fully upon us, I decided to post some things I'm working on. It's been a while huh? In October, the fam and I went to the Rhinebeck Sheep and Wool Festival (that's where I took the picture of the guy above). It was so awesome. I hadn't spent much money on yarn this year, so this was the perfect oppurtunity for me to splurge :)

Didn't take many pictures of the yarns I got, but here's one my mom picked out. She wants a hat with a crocheted flower on it. I think it will look great.

I'm also working on designing a sweater. I've been really inspired lately, and I hope that this is the first of many original creations for me. When the fall/winter collections come out, I love browsing the crazy expensive sweaters that could easily be replicated by the handknitter. This was my first inspiration:
and here is the project in progress:

This is definitely a learning experience for me so far. I'm knitting top down, and increasing in that cable pattern was kind of a pain to figure out. Oh, and, yes, that's the top. It kind of looks like the bottom. The gauge in that cable pattern is so tight, but it's going to stretch like crazy when blocked. I also think the original pattern was made at a much larger gauge anyway (I'm using 10.5 needles, and I bet the one above was around 13). But, of course I couldn't really figure that out until I started. We'll see how it goes! I transferred it to scrap yarn recently to try on, and it fits how I had imagined--kind of slouchy and very warm! Hopefully progress will continue...