Belated Happy Fourth!

I must say, it was a pretty darn good weekend. It started off on Friday with my new carpet being installed in my living room. I am super excited! When we first bought the house and carried out the extensive renovations, my hubby picked out some lovely white carpet for the house, but incredibly impractical given we were planning on having children. Even before Bean came along, though, the carpet in there was looking pretty rough. We used to eat every night in front of the TV and, God love him, Hubby is incapable of eating any kind of spaghetti sauce without spilling some! Then when the baby came along, things just went from bad to worse. We have stopped eating our meals in there, but the damage was done.

So, a couple of weeks ago I decided that we would be getting Stainmaster carpet in that room. Even if we don't eat in there, Bean usually has juice with her, and even in a sippy cup or juice box, there's no certainty that there won't be spills. And, she has an uncanny knack for knocking over sodas! We also decided to go with a darker color to hide any stains that might happen. We were both worried about the carpet messing up the "feel" of the room, but figured we could always go back to white later. How wrong we were! I LOVE my new carpet and think the darker tan just makes the whole room look so much warmer and more inviting! Plus it is super soft, so I just want to roll around on the floor!

We haven't done a whole heck of a lot for the rest of the weekend. I did get a sock made out of the yarn I was complaining about in my last post. I used Cookie A's Pomatomus pattern and love the effect. I think the colors are just perfect for the fish-scale pattern. I shortened the leg of the sock by one pattern repeat to compensate for the extra length I would need for my massive, size 11 feet, but think it looks really nice. I'm still on the leg for the second sock, but have put it aside in favor of another project for right now.

The new project is a knit along for the amazing and talented Shelly's Spiral Sweater. It's just such an innovative pattern that I had to take part. Shelly spun the yarn for her first sweater herself, which makes her even cooler in my book. I've never tried spinning and am afraid to do so given my addictive nature, but I think the people who do it are pretty darn nifty!

I've just about finished up my swatch for the sweater, and the best part is that it will become the beginning of the spiral. I always hate swatching because it seems like such a waste of time to make something and block it even though it won't even be part of the finished project.

Here's what the swatch looked like pre-blocking:

And here's what it looks like while being blocked:

I like this simple lace pattern. By the time I got done with the increases, I already had the repeat memorized and can really zip through it. I'm using Koigu Handpainted yarn and the colors are just delicious. Can't wait to keep going! Bring on Assignment #3, Shelly!