As you can see, this is the same design that I used for Lizzie's Felted Bag, just different colours that I thought my 18 year old niece, Catherine might like.  It was meant for Xmas, but I finally got it to Catherine in late January even tho' I had finished it before the holidays.  I again used Cascade 220 and an eyelash yarn.



Catherine likes it.  To quote "It's so cute!  Very reminiscent of Dr. Suess, who was the whole of my childhood.  I love it...".

Isn't it wonderful to get such feedback on a gift you make for someone?  Both Catherine and her sister Sarah are very appreciative of the items I knit for them, which is why I continue to knit for them.

I had George try on the leg.  It fits so far.

Meanwhile, I finished the 20" of mock rib for the circular shrug last night and started on the 2x2 ribbing.  I hope to finish knitting the shrug tonight and get it sewn up and photographed tomorrow.  Sarah's birthday is April 18th and I need to get this in the mail.

In October, my husband George's youngest brother, Mark, married his girlfriend of eight years, Lizzie.  I made Lizzie a wildly coloured felted bag as a welcome-to-the-family gift.

I used four colours of Cascade 220 and a yellow eyelash yarn.  This also took 3 washings to get to a felted appearance I liked.  (The bag is stuffed with washclothes in all these pics.)



Here's a picture of its bottom:



And here it is hanging to show the length of the strap:

I knitted on the shrug constantly on Wednesday and took this progress photo this morning.



That's 2 skeins of Jiffy yarn.  I think the entire shrug is going to take just under 4 skeins.  I'm really liking how the mock rib is looking.

Back in late 2005, I made several felted bags and a purse.  I made the greens & purples bag first.  I used 5 coordinating colours of Cascade 220.  I knitted with each colour until I felt like a change.  It took 3 trips through my front-loader washing machine to get it felted to a point I liked.  The handle on this bag is about 14 inches long.  I use this bag as my purse on sunny days.  It's too open for rainy Seattle days.



The bottom of the bag came out looking like tie-dye.  I liked it so much I deliberately did the same on the next two bags I made.

I finally got my test machine at work set up properly using Ghost images and spent the rest of the day playing with Quick Test Pro (QTP).  QTP is used to create automated tests by recording the actions and entries of a website or application user.  The recording is then modified to allow for parameterization and such. 

I got so involved in what I was doing that I completely lost track of time.  I find that happens often when I'm really interested in what I'm doing... suddenly I look at a clock and hours have gone by.  Between that and the buses running slow, I didn't get home until nearly 9pm tonight.

I finally uploaded the photo George took on Sunday (4/2) morning.



This shows 6 inches of 2x2 ribbing and 1 inch of mock rib.  The color is a lot better in real life.

I've completed one of the socks for George and have the second cast on.



I cast on to two needles.  I'm thinking for my next pair of socks of casting on to a slightly larger needle as Cassie of Too Much Wool does.

My niece Sarah is going to be 14 on April 18th.  About a week ago, I put up a webpage of possible knitted gifts for her to choose from.  She selected the Circular Shrug in cream.  Sarah can't wear wool so I bought some Lion Brand Jiffy.  It's working up beautifully.  I have the first 6" of 2x2 rib done and about 3" of the mock rib done.  I'll try to put up some progress photos tomorrow.

I got a lot of the 2x2 ribbing knitted while George & I were down in Corvallis, OR visiting our friend Alan for his housewarming.  Alan has set up a theater in his living room and I knitted while we watched Peter Jackson's "King Kong".  I was actually able to knit by feel for once.  There are some advantages to knitting with worsted weight yarn after all. :)  (Usually I'm knitting with DK or thinner yarns.)

I'll try to write more often and also put up a gallery of previously finished projects.  I just have to hunt down years worth of photos.

I started a 6-9 month contract at RealNetworks on March 15th.  I'm working in Ecomm QA for RealArcade so part of my job is playing games.  So far I'm enjoying the work and once the large wave of projects is over, I'll start automating some of the basic verification tests using Quick Test Pro.