Secrets Pals

I had just signed up to participate in Secret Pal 13 swaps. I had a blasted in the last swap that I participated in so I am hoping for the same experience this round. I figure, by joing a swap, I can have guilt-free shopping spree. I get to buy all the goodies that I have been wanting but since it is not for me, it doesn't count.

The weather has gotten a bit nippy and it's time to pull out all the hats and mitten. However, I realized that all of the kids' hat doesn't fit them anymore so I've put everything aside and cast on the Snowflake Inca Hat from Ittsy Bittsy Hat. I loooovve how the Noro colors knitted up but it sure feels like Brillo Pad. Even after I soaked it in SOAK for half an hour, it will still be too itchy for Aliana to wear.

I went out and bought some fleece to line the hat. Now, you're talking about a woman who will throw away a perfectly good shirt because she can't be bother to sew on one stinking buttons. Since this is for my little girl and my need to show off my knitted items, I sucked it up and whipped out my sewing needle. Just to emphasize how much I hate to sew, I had to search the house for about 30 mins looking for a sewing needle. I was able to produced one needle located at a bottom of a forgotten craft basket. Hard to believe that this same woman owns approximately 3 set of interchangeable knitting needles, 20 set of dpns, 25 pairs of straights in various materials and length. Let's not mention my collection of Chibi needles, but I digress.....

The hat came out just right. By "just right" I meant, the right size and not crooked. What can I say? I have low standards.

Currently I am working on a Girl's Smocked Jacket by Blue Sky Alpacas. I'm knitting this up in Rowan Big Wool in color Whoosh:

I don't have any pictures yet since I've been knitting this at night after the kids goes to bed and the lighting is horrible. I have knitted the body and finished the left front this morning. Since this is knitted in super big needles and even bigger wool, I am hoping to finish this up in a couple of days.

This pattern is written out with the goal to confused the hell out of the knitter. There are mistakes everywhere. The written pattern and charts are completely wrong. Needless to say, it took about 3 frogging session to realize that it wasn't me. Anyway, I am not completely following the pattern and only knitting this how I "think" it should be knitted.