I've gotten myself just short of 9" into the Orangina top by Glampyre



at 9" I plan to cast on for the back separately knit till its also 9" then join the two pieces in the round and knit them both till the end. Of course I'm now procrastinating... mainly because i want to wait until my options arrive and i can start knitting the back piece on them.... privately its cos i need a break from the stitch pattern, it gets pretty monotonous after a while. I hate to think what its going to be like once I'm knitting in the round.

So in my moment of weakness the Fiery bolero pulled its first punch and got me to cast it on. I've just finished casting on the extra stitches for the sleeves and i now have about 16cm of stockinette in front of me. Unfortunately no photo's at this stage.

I'm using Lion Brand Cotton Ease in Violet for the bolero, I really do like this yarn. For the price you pay its pretty good, I think it has a funny smell though. It might be the acrylic in it. And the yardage is great, i think it's only going to take three skeins to do this - I've got 6!

Last Thursday I was able to get off work early and went down to my local yarn store to peruse for a gift for my swap Buddie to cover the cost of posting my options to me. I'd already sent a small box of Tim Tams to say thank you and Emily's other half seemed to appreciate them, so I put together a box with 4 hanks of yarn for Emily and 3 packets of Tim Tams for her and Rob.

I'm hoping that she'll freak out when she sees the yarn, its a blend of merino and possum hair.... POSSUM HAIR!! I couldn't resist, its definitely unusual and very Australian! The colourway sounds a bit odd, orange green and browns - i picked it cos it encompasses all of her latest fav colours and I think it will look pretty good knitted up into a scarf or hat and neckwarmer (not enough for a scarf and hat I think).

I've spent quite a bit of money on this last swap, i guess I'm lucky that i can afford it.

But possibly not for much longer, we did a bit of house hunting this weekend... it didn't end well but i wont go into that... we're hoping to have some debts paid off in the next 6 months and then start hitting the banks for a loan. Then we can really start looking seriously. Hubby wanted to start looking now so we can get an idea of what particular suburbs are like that are within our estimated price range, but I'm afraid that we'll find something that's just perfect and not be ready for it... then we'll be constantly comparing everything we see to that house and may not find something as good. That's my fear, I don't want that to happen.

But really in the housing market 6 months is a long time.