Knitting: A Story of WIPs

I'm still knitting, though not nearly as much as when Joey was small enough to sit there and stare at the ceiling. He is getting into everything which makes knitting while he's awake somewhat difficult. I try and fit some in during my lunch break at work (I have a new full time job now!), but that doesn't always happen. I'd love to stay up and knit after Joey goes down for the night but truth be told, 9 times out of 10, I fall asleep when he does too. Technically, I have 4 WIPs right now, though one is only in the swatching phase. I LOVE the pattern (one I actually paid for) and it requires a lot of yarn (1100yds!), I decided that I really wanted to buy local and support my LYS (Local Yarn Store), especially since one opened up super close by last fall! I stopped there yesterday on my way home just to see what they had. Disappointingly, they didn't have the brand and weight I wanted, but I did get two hanks of a close yarn in a color I liked. I also got new needles because the pattern calls for size 15 :) Got home, swatched, and was not 100% sold on the yarn for the project. It's a lovely yarn, and it's currently being used in a WIP I started this morning, but it's just not right for the big project. So, I ordered the yarn called for in the pattern online and once it gets here we'll see if I like that better.

In the meantime, I was browsing patterns while Joey was napping and came across this:

OMG! So cute! I haven't actually finished knitting anything for Joey (there's a blanket in hibernation that's likely to stay there) and this looked fun and easy. So far, it's been interesting. I'm still on the spiral part of the shell, and achieving that spiral is something new to me, but it's definitely looking like it's going to be a reasonably quick project. Joey really has enough toys, but I hope he likes this one. If he doesn't, I'm totally keeping it!

This is one of my other WIPs. It's on hold while I wait for more yarn. I spent enough on yarn this paycheck, so I'm waiting until the next one (or possibly the one after that, depending on how the Big Project is going). It's much farther along than this picture shows, but it's the only picture I have and I looooove the colors, so I wanted to share. It's going to be an open-front cardigan that I'll probably keep at work for when the AC gets chilly. The sleeves are little cap sleeves and are actually as done as they're going to get in this picture, unless I decided to crochet a border on them or something. There will be 3 buttons in the brown part, then no more all down the front, which means I'll still be able to wear it even when my belly is huge. :)