I did it again.

Yes, I did it again - I just popped into my LYS to show off Rosy Fingered Dawn and yarn just threw itself at me.

I got some more of Louisa Harding's yarn:



A ball of Impression to make a hat for Ann-at-work (even though she managed to squash two of my fingers the other day while we were moving tables round the restaurant - all I could think of was, "It's my yarn hand, I'll have to knit Continental for a while." even as my fingers were throbbing and turning blue.) It's just going to be a simple beanie style - there's a pattern in the Accessories book, but she suggests knitting flat and seaming. There is no way I'm doing that. I really don't do sewing.

I got this:



to make myself the Moss Stitch hat from the same book. I'm not terribly keen on the actual practice of doing moss stitch, though I like the finished effect. The hat is very cute though, so I'm going to give it a go. Part of my difficulty with moss stitch is that you keep having to move the yarn from front to back and vice versa, which slows everything down no end. I did a little bit of research (you know me, I'd rather read about doing it than actually do it) and I found Theresa's detailed information about different ways of purling. I have been having a go at the Norwegian method and think I have got the hang of it. She says it tends to make the tension looser, so I shall probably end up having to use 2mm needles, since I am a loose knitter at the best of times.

I was practising on the 2x2 rib of the latest socks, which are finally finished:



I just used some ACK-rylic yarn I picked up in Birmingham market, because I liked the idea of camouflage socks. I used this toe-up sock pattern. I like toe-up socks - no need for a swatch, just keep going until the sock is long enough/you get fed up/you run out of yarn (whichever is the soonest). So now I have no socks in progress, so I need some socks to knit, so I need some sock yarn, because, of course, there is absolutely nothing, repeat, nothing, even faintly suitable in the mountain of stash. So I caved in and bought this:



I don't know if I should cast on a hat (or two); a sock (or two); take up one of the many WIPs; dig down into the stash for a UFO; or what.

I know I'm not going to start another shawl just yet, though a new shawl is in the very early planning stages. It's going to be a "shawl swap" shawl. My long-time knit bud over in the US there has agreed that we should knit on the same shawl and then send it to the other. We've knitted on the same shawl at the same time before (like a personal, individual KAL) but we've never actually swapped before. It so exciting - we have so much to decide. The shape, the size, the yarn, the colour, the pattern. Any suggestions, anyone?