So...

I found this really fantastic shawl at the Thrift Store. Like, really, really fantastic. It's purple and soft and knit with boa feathers in some places, and it has tassels.

AND SOMEONE HAND KNIT IT- AND WHOEVER IT WAS HAND KNIT FOR, THEY DROPPED IT OFF AT THE THRIFT STORE.

*sigh* I mean, before I took up knitting I'd never have been able to tell the difference between machine knit and hand knit, and I'd never have thought anything about seeing something hand knit at the thrift store. But now I'm like "do you have any idea how long it took to knit that? how much it cost? do you have any idea how much someone cared about you to make it?". Of course, the person who dropped it off can't hear me- but I wish they could.

Oh well. It's *mine* now. ^_^

I was going through these Alice Starmore knitting books- they're like knitting sudoku in russian with a blindfold- brilliant, beautiful patterns but Alice even admits to how insane they are... There's a quote near this one shawl pattern about how "some of my cable patterns are too big for sweaters" so you need to make something larger than a sweater to hold the whole cable design- and this shawl is the size of a small blanket. I really want to do the shawl but you need a mountain of yarn for it. But look at this thing- it's art.

The Harry Potter scarf I'm working on is coming along pretty well. It's... about half done, I guess, but it doesn't seem like it's as long as it needs to be. Because it's circular it's almost half an inch thick- I'm not going to die of hypothermia this winter. ^_^ I should have some left over yarn from the project, so I might do a pair of gloves to match, or just add more stripes until I think the scarf is the right length.