World's Worst.

Okay, so I might be the world's worst blogger at this point. In my defense The reason I haven't been blogging is because I haven't been knitting. I have decided to put the crochet scarf away for a little while. Crochet really probably isn't my thing and it was starting to wear on me. I'm sure I'll get itchy fingers before too long and drag it back out to finish it though. Without the scarf I've had pretty much NO yarn to knit anything substantial with. Sad life of a college student.

Until now. A couple of amazing friends got me a hundred dollars worth of gift certificates to Michaels. I've been wanting to knit this blanket forever. Pretty much since I received my first free Lion Brand catalog in the mail. But I've never been able to put back enough money to buy all the yarn at once. This is proof that dreams really do come true:

Lion Brand Wool Ease Thick & Quick Pumpkin

I originally planned to knit it in the green color, but there wasn't enough of it at the store and I think I like the orange more now. I'm also knitting it on a pair of size 8 needles so I'm having to double the stitch numbers to match the gauge. [Which I have never done before] So far the rows seem to be the right length without any adjustments. [If my brainmath serves me well] I'm afraid that since I've cast on twice as many stitches though, I'll need a lot more yarn. Does anyone have any experince with this? I'm thinking I may need to make the hour and a half drive back to Michaels tomorrow and try to get the rest of this dye lot before its all gone. Or maybe just wait and see if I have enough? I could always just do a panel or two in a brown or green [It's knit in five long panels] if I run out and cant find any more from this dye lot I suppose. Not sure how that would look. I just don't want to end up with a random patch of a different orange color in one corner of the blanket or something. The actual color of the yarn isn'te as bright as it looks in the picture.

This is my first time knitting cables and so far I've only done the first switch. [Don't know the proper term for that] But it seems to be fairly simple once you get it figured out. I thought I would have a problem with all of the stitch counting especially since I've changed the numbers around, but It's a lot easier to see where the stitches should go than I thought it would be. The rows are harder, because I don't have a row counter, but I've been trying to keep a tally on a piece of paper. I love the way the cable looks so far. I couldn't be more proud.

I also got these:

I'm going to get some sock yarn the next time I buy. And knit up a real nice pair of socks. [Hopefully] Pretty exciting right!? RIGHT!?

Sorry for not being a stable blogger. Swear I'll try to do better. :]

Happy Knitting!