Hey, lookit that

Well, I'm glad I did take a little trip out to AC Moore last night. Turns out their "Luxury" is only $6/ball, so with the weekly coupon, that's only $3.60. Well, and gas. But I head out that way at least once a week anyway.

So. Now my problem is figuring out what colors to use, since they have different ones. I'm thinking two shades of purple and... something else. That's the tricky bit. I'd say green, but they don't have the shade I want. Then again, they were out of black when I went, too - maybe there are more colors they were just out of. They don't have it on their website and searching for "luxury" is pretty fruitless. (I mean, I didn't JUST search for "luxury". But adding the word to searches about yarn really doesn't help.) And it's not listed on any yarn review sites that I could see.

Oh no! More yarn shopping is called for! Alas, whatever shall I do?

I also wonder what a "knitting and crochet party" is. It's advertised at all their stores, but I haven't seen anywhere what that means.

Anyway, the other reason it was a good trip is that I got The Knitter's Handy Book of Sweater Patterns with a 50% off coupon, so yay! I'm not sure if I'm regretting it or not. For a long time I've wanted Folk Bags which they sell there. And I was going to get it. But it's back with the knitting stuff, and I thought, oh, I'll look and see what they have in the book section. And they had the Handy Book, so I got that instead, being too lazy to go all the way back to the back of the store again. Dunno that I'll ever use it, but it's a nice reference to have, I think. Someday. For some reason, I was under the impression that it had more options than it actually does. And I don't even make sweaters! What was I thinking? Well, maybe it'll make a nice gift for a knitting friend.

And I had a dream that Knitty's surprise was up, and it isn't. And I'm surprised! So I guess that works.

Last night I finally got around to watching Batman Begins. And I have two projects that need proper tools before I can start them, and take a lot of concentration. So I grabbed a skein of TLC Amore that I had bought like three years ago to make a scarf out of, cast on, and started knitting. The Batman Begins Shawl! It's even black. Quite appropriate. Anyway, here's the pattern so far, such as it is:

Materials: 1 skein TLC Amore
Size 10 US circular needles - I'm using my Denises and I just stuck on the longest cord, so whatever length that is.

(KFB - knit into the front and back of the stitch)

CO 1
KFB

Begin Increase 1:
KFB, Knit across

Repeat until you have 5 stitches on the needle, then complete the Dropstitch Bit

Dropstitch Bit:
Row 1: K1, *yo 2x, K1* repeating ** across
Row 2: K the actual stitches across, dropping all the YOs off the needle. (AKA K1, *drop 2 YOs, K1* repeat ** across)

Knit 5 rows of Increase 1 followed by a Dropstitch Bit until there are 40 stitches on the needle.

This is where I decided that it was getting too pointy, and I wanted to increase the width faster than I was, so I placed 2 markers so that the 20 center stitches were between them (leaving 10 sts on each side) and switched to...

Increase 2:
Row 1-4: KFB, K to last stitch before first marker, KFB, K across
Row 5: KFB, K to last stitch, KBF (yeah. I'm not sure if knitting the back loop and then the front actually makes a difference - I mean, I KNOW it doesn't in the black boucle yarn I'm using, but I wonder if it would otherwise - but at any rate, that's what I'm doing.)

And then doing Increase 2 followed by the Dropstitch Bit. I'm up to 60 sts on the needle - I plan on making it until the yarn runs out and binding off. Great TV knitting, and I mean, I'm only looking for something to throw on around the house, so it works for that. I wouldn't use it for a night on the town or anything.

(Ok, I totally lied about placing the markers - I'm just counting stitches. But it was the easiest way I could think of to explain where I was putting the middle increases. And placing markers WOULD be a good idea, I just don't have any on me right now.)