It’s been a very busy week. My job has been time consuming but, I managed to finish the encore baby sweater during my knitting time.

Well, just about. As you can see, the buttons aren’t sewed on yet and I don’t know if they show in the photo, but I still have several ends to weave in. I bet there’s at least 2 more hours of work before this is ready to give to someone.

It took me two hours to find buttons for this sweater. I have tons and tons of buttons and I am determined to use what I have. These buttons are my final selection. I had several brass colored ones but I really wanted a wooden button. These are exactly what I had in mind. I also had the cute little puppy button that you see at the neckline. It looks great and gives the sweater a special look. Since the mom I’m giving this to is a dog trainer, I know she’ll really like it. The stripes matched up beautifully when I sewed it together. Size is 6-9 months. It took two balls of Encore Worsted and I used a small amount of the solid brown at the edges. I used the solid brown on the neckline and skipped it on the button and button hole bands.

I just finished one of the best knitting related novels that I’ve ever read. I love Debbie Macomber’s Blossom Street series and will be buying Back to Blossom Street tomorrow when it’s released but I wanted to finish The Beach Street Knitting Society and Yarn Club first, so I read it in one week. This is really unusual for me because I only have a few hours a day to call my own and my knitting usually wins out over reading. The Beach Street Knitting Society is excellent. The main character is a woman who takes over her Grandmother’s yarn shop in an English seaside town. I love the setting as England is such a favorite place of mine. This book made me want to book a flight and take a trip NOW. I would love to meet these characters and spend time in their town and the yarn shop. Truly a wonderful book. I checked the author’s website and there’s a sequel coming out in August. I’m also ready the Friday Night Knitting Club and have Knit Two, the next novel in Kate Jacobs Series waiting to be read. Some books I listen to on audio but I still enjoy the written word. Especially when time allows.

I’m continuing to find podcasts. I listened to Yarncraft, the Lion Brand podcast. I’ll have to give it another chance because the episode that I listened to was not that interesting. The one that I’m definitely going to subscribe to is Knitmore Girls. I listened to several last week and I found the mother-daughter team very entertaining and inspiring for my own knitting. I’m still looking through the Itunes store for podcasts and applications. This new Ipod Touch is really terrific.

Also, over the weekend, I finally figured out how to use the webcam on my new netbook. I need some practice but hope to add some video content to this blog someday soon.

Oh, and I made trips to two of my LYS and bought projects at both. Got yarn for a great summer top from Knit Simple Magazine at one and yarn for a cotton shawl for the summer at the other. More about those another time. While, I was at the store, I also asked about the pattern and beads for the beaded scarf that I’ve seen so many others making. Sure enough they had the pattern and the beads. Since I’ve had this beautiful Koigu yarn in my stash for several years, I bought the beads and pattern and I’m excited that I’ll finally be using this yarn.

So now, I have three new projects started and still haven’t finished a beautiful cotton sweater that only needs the sleeves finished, several shawls that are at various stages, several socks, three baby afghans, one full size afghan, and a few more projects that I can’t think of right now. The great thing is I haven’t added to my stash at all. All the yarn I’ve purchased has been for a specific project. I’m really happy about that.