These pretzels are making me thirsty.

Something about the simplicity of pretzels always pleases me. They're really just a funky-baked bread with some salt sprinkled on top, but they are always tasty and usually satisfying. My favorite is to eat them with cream cheese ... but I digress. (I'm snacking at work. That's all the explination you need.)

Continue to knit in my spare time, which is (as always) sparse. Busy with some extra events at work, and with things as they are ("now more than ever...") it seems a good idea to put some extra hours in. In any case, I got half of my first project for Hazel knitted:

A Humping Bunnies bag, that I am still giggling over. This is my first foray into color knitting, and I'm quite pleased with the result. A little puckering from pulling my floats too tight in the back, but that's easily fixed. So all that's left is to make the second side (the first side took me a total of about six hours), then sew a lining in and add the drawstring. Future Humping Bunnies gadget pouches will have to be made in fingering weight yarns, because of the number of stitches required to make the image. Had some other ideas (now that I know I can do color knitting!!) to do gadget pouches with an argyle diamond, or a fleur de lis, something that's simple and understated.

And turned the heel of Dad's first Earl Grey sock (I love this pattern!!):

And am halfway down the foot already. That's Clio being helpful in the background.

Off to my first Stitch n' Pizza party at Yarns 2 Ewe tonight ... see? Look! I'm being outgoing, and making an effort to make new friends. Aren't you proud of me?

The coolest news yet today

Okay ... so I've become one of those people. One of those people that thinks what she has to say is important enough to post it online for anyone to read. Hopefully a few people will. This is really an effort for me to maintain flowing creative juice (mmmm, tasty creative juices), and to keep track of my progress as said juices flow. I wanted a place that people could go and look at photos of my knitted projects, and so this is the first of (hopefully) many posts and photos describing my yarn-y adventures.

And so to start with some good news! My Funkiest of Funky Friends, Tim, manages a super-cool shop in Chicago called Hazel. Hazel sells all sorts of stuff that I would dearly love to spend my paycheck on ... awesome cards and stationary sets, cool things for the home, original jewelry, and anything else that categorically falls under "awesome." Somehow, I never mentioned to Tim my three-year-old obsession with knitting until today. Long story short, Tim has agreed to put some of my hand-mades into the store! I'm going to start with some gadget pouches -- little socks of various sizes and colors meant for digital cameras, Blackberrys, iPods, and the like. I have some really cool ideas for those ... gives me a great excuse to practice my cabling! I have the summer to make hats and fingerless gloves that he will sell when it becomes cold again in Chicago, say around October-ish. I've spent the morning at work looking for new fingerless glove patterns (in between e-blasts and planning last minute details for my event tomorrow night, of course), and being so damned excited I could just pee.

Here's a photo of an early pair of fingerless gloves I made -- I ended up giving these to my brother:

Today is Opening Day for the Houston Astros, so I will not be able to knit as much as I would like ... but this development is giving me even more reason (like I needed another one) to schedule time for myself to knit during the week. Wish me luck!