I shouldn't be allowed to wander unsupervised.

I would feel shame, but I have none, apparently. Today has been a very strange one--we were supposed to go out for Father's birthday, which was two weeks ago, but then he got a bit of stomach upset from the hot mustard he had with his egg roll last night, so we decided not to. Then, I realized I had to go out anyway, as Dog needed more doggie Depends (ie, house training pads), so he and I went shopping at the local pet store that allows four-legged customers to come in and do their own shopping, as it were. This created a bit of a problem; another canine customer was most impolite, huffing and cussing at Dog, calling him names. Then, Dog came over all shy at the register, and it took me forever to realize he might be embarassed. I mean, here he is, a dog, standing next to a woman buying canine incontenence pads. Geeze. Maybe we can get them shipped to the house in plain cardboard boxes or something in future.

Anyway, I took him home to recover from the ordeal, and went to Joann's (they are having really great clearance/sales at present.) I kind of want to make a Christmas stocking like this one on Lisabee Designs, and thought I'd pick up some worsted weight at a good price. The unfortunate thing is, though, that they don't have worsted weight yarn in any jolly colors. Well, no jolly colors aside from screaming, fire engine/holly berry red and hysterical Kelly greens. I'm quite disappointed. Oh, well. But at least now I have an idea of how I'm going to use the $50 gift certificate I got for KnitPicks now.

And, I have a confession. Since I brought Christmas in under budget (and with more items in bags and wrap than anticipated for the happy receivees), I decided to blow the $20 I would have spent on yarn if they'd had it on something else. Just random yarn, just because. And I brought this home:

No, your eyes do not decieve you. That is Vanna White's face on the label. I know there should be no judgement based on the label, the yarn should speak for itself, but I can't help but feel a little embarassed to say I bought yarn shilled by that chick who turns letters and claps on Wheel of Fortune. But it was so eye-catching, I really fell for it before I even saw the ball band. I realized after I took this picture that it doesn't do the yarn justice. So I retook the image:

This shows it better. When I saw the yarn, it was in the next to the bottom bin, gleaming mysteriously from the shadowy deeps. I couldn't justify buying two of them (see, there's this picture of Vanna White on the front) but I figure I can do some sort of really netty-mesh scarf/headband out of it. With tassels. I like tassels.

Then I also got two skeins of Moda Dea Bamboo Wool in Blue Velvet. Not a fan of David Lynch, but the color is gorgeous, and I do have that pattern I originally developed for the alpaca that needs a yarn. I like the bluey-purpley colors in this yarn, and it's got great hand in the skein. We'll see how it acquits itself in the finished fabric.

This is said alpaca, being knitted up in a garter stitch pattern from the huge stitchionary I have which was badly translated from the Italian. After I corrected several problems in the pattern, I started working it. It doesn't look like the image in the book--then again, the image in the book is knitted up in colors with more contrast than these--but I still quite like it. Rather clean and tailored look to it. And it's nicely squooshy, but that, I believe, is the alpaca.