Books and Bendigo Yarn

The postman has been paying a lot of visits to my house lately. Somehow I forgot how many things I had ordered lately, and they all seemed to arrive at the same time. My wool for the Central Park Hoodie arrived just a few minutes ago, so I thought I had better add it to the post whilst the house is quiet and there are no kids home. Perfect opportunity for blogging I say. On the left is the Dusty Blue Aran yarn for the Hoodie. It is kind of like a darkish denim color and I really do love it. Wish I could start it now, but no, must wait for September. Besides it will give me time to finish off some other items that need doing. On the right is an 8 ply yarn, and the color is
Mariner. I absolutely love this color, but have not decided yet what to knit with it, but I will think of something good. I also received my two books that I had ordered from Amazon. The Handknit Holidays book has some really beautiful gloves and mittens in it. I have never knitted gloves before, but I could start one day. Greetings from Knit Cafe is a really nice book, and yesterday I sat in my bedroom and actually read through it. There is a little story that goes with each pattern, and you actually feel like you get to know something about the owner of the cafe. Wish we had a knitting shop where we could pop in for coffee, a chat and a knit. There are some beautiful dresses in here to make, not with my figure of course, but they are beautiful. There is a little girls skirt in there that would be quite good for using up leftover balls of yarn, including the fluffy stuff. It is very cute. I actually quite like a few patterns in these books, and they are very pretty to read and look at. I also printed out a copy of the errata page for Knitting Nature, so I had better make a copy to stick into mum's book too, which I am giving her for Christmas. I have also nearly finished knitting the second square for Samantha, and next hope to make a few green ones, and then I can pop them into the mail. Won't be too long Samantha, maybe after your trip you can pick them up from the post office.
I have also actually pulled Paul's jumper back out to knit on and have nearly finished knitting the front of it. Alas, there was a line that I missed out on for the back so I will be "ripping" it back to the armholes and reknitting it back up tomorrow. Then I will start the collar as I think it will take just as long to do that part as the sleeves, so I might as well do it first and get it out of the way. I will be glad to have that finished. I have put the other cardigans away in my green knitting bag out of the room so that I dont get bored with Paul's jumper and pull one of them out to finish off. You know how it is when you have so many projects on the go that just doing a couple of rows of one leads to finishing that one first, then you neglect the others, and they never get finished. Well I am trying to finish at least four of them before September starts so the Central Park Hoodie will be all I have to do until I finish it. I am so excited to be knitting this, as I love knitting cables.
I am also trying to get Isabelle's birthday party organized. I only have to do the lolly bags, so she is helping me decide what she wants in them for her little friends. I am doing kindergarten duty on Friday so we shall have to have it done before then. She is having it at McDonald's on Friday with her kindergarten friends, so I wont need to clean up afterwards. Normally I have her parties at home, but it always ends up so exhausting, so this should be easier. She is so excited, and I am hoping that her two loose teeth at the front will hang in there until after her party on Sunday. We are just having a lunch with family on Sunday which is her actual birthday, and Isabelle will be able to play with her cousins. I hope that the weather will be nice for both days. So that is all for now, and I am off to finish some housework which I am slowly catching up on since being sick. I am hoping that this cough is gone by Friday. I hope that you all have a lovely day too whether you are basking in the sunshine, or snuggled up inside in the freezing cold like me.