Thanks to all for your comments on Sapporo and our new house...and thanks so much for continuing to read despite my comings and goings :)

With things getting more and more settled in here, it's so much easier to get focused back on the knitting. I am still plugging away on the Dalegarn Raglan sweater for my friend's son, whose birthday is about a month and a half away now. I think this will probably be done by the end of this week (famous last words, lol).I'm finally past that awkward "Eek, there's too many stitches on this needle!" phase, and have decreased enough for the knitting to be comfortable. Well, at least until I get to the "Eek, there's not enough stitches on this needle!" phase, ha ha. I really cannot get these photos to show this yarn's proper coloring, though. It definitely has some blueberry undertones like these photos show, but to the eye it is quite a bit darker, though not navy either. Here's a closeup of the cable:Once this is complete, my next planned project is the Katherine Hepburn Cardigan from the book Lace Style. I will be using the beautiful Anny Blatt yarn that my sister gave me last year. Here is my gauge swatch...I am really taken with the yarn/stitch pattern combo!Unfortunately this may become another one of those looonnnggg, drawn out projects of mine, as I am going to have to do some serious baby knitting over the next three months. I have four friends having babies between late-April and mid-May, yikes! For three of them I will probably be making smallish things (booties, socks, hats, maybe a cardigan) which won't be too bad. The fourth is my best friend (same one whose son is getting the raglan sweater above), so I want to make a blanket and stuffed animal and maybe a sweater too. She is pretty sure she is having a girl, which is wonderful from a knitting perspective. So many cute girl patterns!

The big excitement here this week was the delivery of our new washer and dryer, after being on backorder for the last two months. They are made by Samsung, which I didn't really know made appliances. But they seem really sturdy and nice, so hopefully they will prove to be a good choice. Today I finally ran a load for the first time. The funniest thing is whenever there's anything interesting going on in the basement, Quincy creeps down the stairs to the first one he can see from, and checks out the situation. Like this:As you can see, he was totally intrigued by the movement and sounds of the machines:I don't know about where you are, but it is snowing like mad here! We've gotten about 8 inches in three hours! Perfect day for knitting, so I think I'll skedaddle now...P.S. Can you believe it's less than 2 days until the inauguration? I've been enjoying watching my George Bush countdown clock (in the sidebar) wind down, as I've had it there since I started this blog three years ago. Now it says "1 day 8 hours". Hard to believe, but I must admit it's been a long wait ;)