I figured it was time I showed you a progress-shot of my blue cardigan, so, here it is. That’s about 13″ or so long from the shoulders. I’ve pinned the fronts together so you can see the shape. I’m doing a peasant sleeve on these–basically a squared-off version of a fitted sleeve, but something that should fit better than a drop-shoulder would be. Once the body is done, I’ll be going back to the sleeves and picking up stitches along the armholes to knit them.

Yarn-wise, I’m not at the halfway point yet, but that first skein is starting to look rather hollow. I tried this on and it comes to just-shy of the bottom of my rib-cage. I don’t know exactly how long I want the sweater to be, but I’m thinking that just hitting the hip-bone will be perfect. The sleeves? Well, if I start worrying that I won’t have enough yarn for full-length, I’m more than happy with shorter sleeves. I regularly push my sleeves up to my elbow anyway, so that’s not a concern. The important thing is that this fits just right and looks great so far. SUCH a relief after the last two sweaters which looked gorgeous but are pretty much unwearable.

I took advantage of all those $25 reward certificates I’ve been hoarding. (These are the ones I get for using my Amazon.com Visa card. Oh, and one that my sister gave me for Christmas. Thank you, Patty!) Yes, I ordered my new camera. A Nikon D40 and a Nikon 55-200mm VR . In fact, I got them as a kit. Now I’m just hoping that I have it by the weekend because there’s a family thing my BIL doesn’t know about, but would be chock full of great photo ops. I actually ordered it through Amazon (so I could use all those certificates), but it’s coming from Adorama camera, which is in New York city, so I’m hoping the shipping time is fast.

That wasn’t the only money I spent yesterday, either, and I’m a little bit in shock. I had gone over to Walmart to look at this camera in person yesterday morning… And, as an aside, if that had been my only chance to look at it, I would not have been impressed. Their floor model was not only bolted down to prevent thievery–which I appreciate as a necessity but which makes it feel completely different in weight when you hold it–but because there was no memory card, I couldn’t take sample pictures. All I could do was basically look at the pretty buttons (grin). But, anyway, after I left there in disgust, I stopped at DSW because I had a 30% off coupon that expired today and I figured I should take a look. And yes, I bought a pair of Naturalizer Mary Janes for $30. Then I stopped at the local mall to look in the Ann Taylor shop because my friend Cindy had nicely given me a gift card for Christmas. They were offering an additional 25% off anything from their sale racks, and so I bought a couple things there. (Thank you, Cindy!) Though, unfortunately, not any pants. (I really need some new pants.)

All in all, I spent more money yesterday–what with buying the camera–than I think I did for my weekend on Martha’s Vineyard last month. So I’m kind of in shock. And unlike hordes of other knitters at MDSW this weekend, none of it was even on wool! My Visa bill is already darn close to what it was for the entire month of April, so I have to be GOOD now for the rest of the month. And, really, thank goodness for that Tax-Incentive-Rebate … whatever they’re calling it check. And it’s kind of nice to have used those gift cards. After a while, they start burning holes in my psyche.

Meanwhile, Spring is moving along and all our trees have baby leaves on them. It’s starting to get hard to see the neighbors’ houses. I took these from my bedroom window about an hour ago. The trees are still wet from last night’s rain, but the sun is fighting to come out. Really, except for all the sneeze-inducing stuff out there, it’s really quite lovely. In fact, I’m going to go eat some lunch and then Mom and I are going to take Chappy for a walk. Ta ta!

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