I have found myself throughly caught up into knitting. I want to knit, I want to keep track of my knitting, I want to delve into it ever deeper and become an "expert" on it. There are several hobbies like this in my life, and knitting and gardening seem to the best options for me.

I have an idea for becoming the ever more expert in knitting, and for keeping track of yarn prices, so that when there is a good buy, I can snatch it up. I am going to start a notebook of yarns. I will keep samples of yarn, with the details it comes with (size, contents, recommended needles, price, etc), along with washed swatches with those appropriate details (gauge, yarn made with, needles made with). I read recently about using 2 threads together with bigger needles to get a bigger gauge, but so far of those I've asked about what the resulting size would be, I've been told "I don't know" and "you'll have to make a swatch". Just about every where, the recommendation is "make a swatch, wash it, block it, and see what size it is." You'd also see the feel after it dries, which would be useful.

On the knitting front, I finished the BSJ a week ago. I've posted just about everywhere and told as many folks as I could about it. I'm so proud of it. Next, I'm making a sweater for myself, while I continue to work on those house shoes. I believe I'm knitting significantly faster than a month ago; I had to take out a great deal on the house shoes, and the reknitting is moving *way* faster than the original knitting. Looks better, too. So encouraging! Means I'm still improving. I know, I know, the more I do it, the better I will get. Nonetheless, its so good to see it happening.