Knitting revisited

I used to do a lot of knitting when I was younger. When I was at college I made lots of different garments that made me stand out from the crowd - knitted patchwork, braids, special necklines, you name it...I think I lost heart completely, though, when all my favourites were stolen from the student launderette one day. I had washed them carefully and put them in the dryer and had to go out to answer the phone. When I got back the drier was empty and all but one dripping wet sweater were gone. My fellow students would have recognized them as mine if somebody else had turned up wearing one of them. That never happened, so where they ended up I'll never know. A few months later I started working, discovered patchwork and my knitting endeavours were history. Or so I thought.

It all started again when I discovered Knitty. It was the Clapotis that got me started, and once I had finished I had discovered all sorts of other interesting projects. Starting a new craft is a perfect excuse for stash building, and I have come to realize that I have more yarn and ideas for projects than I'll be able to stitch in a very long time - so what else is new? ;-)
I fell in love with this little hat at Knitty quite early on, and although I had no one to knit it for, I just had to have a go. I used a soft baby wool, but found it a bit too floppy for my liking, so if I make another one, I'll try a smooth cotton, I think. The daughter of one of my other's friends has just given birth to a baby girl, so now this little hat will soon find a head to sit on - my teddy's head is way too small, but was the best model I could find - I had to take a picture before it left the building, right?

My stash now consist of several skeins of beautiful sock yarn and I will try my hand at some toe-ups this summer. There are also some balls of Kureyon waiting to be made into a scarf, but it is way too warm to be thinking about that at the moment. Or maybe the heat has gone to my head, because this book made its way into my home the other day! I fell in love with the Frost Flower Leaves shawl after spotting it in someones blog a while ago (I forget whose, sorry!) and when there was a special offer on Amazon a while ago, the book suddenly found its way into my shopping cart... I spent last night dreaming of knitting this beautiful thing. Even all the different tales of the amount of work involved discovered on my blog search yesterday hasn't deterred me, so no one should be surprised to find me in the yarn store tomorrow...
Amid all the dreaming of future projects I still find time to quilt though, and have added some leaves to my window - there's a lot of fussy cutting to be done, but that's something to keep me occupied in front of the TV tonight - I hope there's a good film on!