Whoa.

This past week has been rather interesting, hasn't it?  I mean, for one, we have the horrible, devastating earthquake that shook up the entire eastern seaboard.  Did you see some of the pictures of the aftermath?  It's pretty gruesome stuff.  Please, let's have a moment of silence.

...shudders...

Ok, moving on now. Oh yeah, then there was the hurricane.  Hurricane?!?!  I'm from St. Louis, my friends, and I have lived here seven years and have never had to do "hurricane grocery shopping" before.  I bought water, I bought flashlights, I bought batteries, I filled up the cars with gas, I considered buying tarps, and on and on.  I was thisclose to buying a freakin' generator!    I haven't seen that much of The Weather Channel since that time I went to the periodontist, and novocaine was involved in that one.  Oy....

It's times like this that make me very glad to be a knitter.  When I am stressed out, overwhelmed, fearful, worried, am being bugged out of my mind by my children and/or husband, I turn to knitting.  I don't gamble, smoke, drive fast, drink, and my coffee intake is starting to moderate after all these years, so knitting is my one and only obsession.  Well, that and yarn.

See this?

This is some of the yarn I bought when visiting my in-laws in Cincinnati.  This crazazy yarn called Frivola, and it is my first foray into the world of novelty yarns.  It is this very soft yarn, with little cocoon-like nubs in shades of green (with sparkles in it!).  When I was out on Saturday with it, several friends remarked that it looked like I was knitting with broccoli.  Hmmmm....

Broccoli:

Frivola:

Ummmmm...ok, they have a point. 

One skein of this knitted up faster than you can say "choppin' broccoli" .  I finished the skein in 15 minutes, to my surprise, and I have another to add to this scarf.  I hope it will make one of my nieces happy this holiday season.  Oh yes, I am knitting already for Christmas, but even thinking about it makes me twitchy.

I am also knitting for the upcoming fall weather.  I had this epiphany, really, that if I took something out of my stash that I had cast on for months (ahem...years....ahem) ago and, like, knit it,  then I would have--get this--a FINISHED PROJECT!  So I delved into my stash and considered many pretty, neglected balls of yarn, and found this little number:

This is the Farmer's Market Cardigan, by Connie Chang Chinchio.  I always find myself gravitating towards her knitting designs.  They look so chic and pretty, yet comfortable.  I am knitting this one up in Cascade 220, in a color called "eggplant", but doesn't exactly resemble that.  It's black and deep slate blue plied together (eggplant?  really?), and I may be sorry at the end that I chose such a dark yarn, that it may not show off the gorgeous cabling in the collar, but 12 inches of it was already knitted up when I got it out of the closet, and I'm goin' for it!