my sister-in-law celebrated her birthday on Mexican Independance day, and i've made her a little sumpthin':  she and my brother have started to go mad for the wine drinking (and really, can you blame them?!?!?!) so i thought a wine cozy/coaster/trivety-thing set was in order.  plus, it gave me another chance to work with the DELICIOUS Malbrigio (this is the Purple Mystery colorway).  lordy, i love this stuff.  i would love a big ol' sloppy sweater out of it, were it not for the fact that it would look like utter shite in 2 seconds because of the pilling.  *le sigh*  but really, would it matter if i just wore it about the house, using it like a wearable secruity blankie?  i would like to add that this entire set took only about 3 hours to knit.  seems that, after knitting the skully vest--i do colorwork with the yarn in both hands--continental knitting finally "stuck."  which is awsome, since i've been attempting it off and on for, oh, a damned long time now. 

between knitting this gift, the slew of impending birthdays, fast approaching yule time, and a post over at Craftster, i got to thinking about gift knitting.  i guess it was really the Craftster post that started it all--i'll give you the gist of it.  a craftster was questioning making gifts for someone that you don't necessarily *like*.  my opinion?  you just don't do that.  to me, creating anything for a person, be it a meal, an intricate shawl, or a simple felted coaster, should be done with love in your heart.  i won't knit on a gift project (or cook, for that matter) if i am feeling down or unhappy about anything let alone the intended giftee.  i'm afraid that the negative energy will transfer to the recipiant in some way.  i dunno, do any of you have thought on the subject?

i knit up a little basket with a mobius handle with the beautiful autumnal Malabrigo yarn.  this is the floppy before felting picture--doesn't look like much, eh?  but after, oh the delicious results that felting brought on.  man, this yarn was made for felting.  i made a felted bag with Cascade 220, and hand felted it in the sink....it took close to two hours to felt.  the malabrigo took all of ten minutes.  i adore how the finished product looks, and i'm definetly going to do more felting with the malabrigo.  i've got ideas for a lightly felted sweater coat thing floating around in my head.  i need to do some swatching and sketching and try to get it out of my head and into actual practice, so we'll see. 

i swatched up the Merino style i got yesterday from knitpicks.  i had an idea for incorporating some skulls into the argyle pattern of Eunny's Deep V-neck Vest for a friend of mine's birthday.  she's a little retarded for skulls on things.  anywho, after about 2 days of charting different skulls and seeing how they interacted with the argyle pattern, i ended up with a swatch.  the skull is a mismash of different ones that i found with a google search.  i love how the skull is a subtle design that almost meshes with the argyle, making it a little more tasteful and less gaudy (imho).  i use 3.25mm needles, and (cross your fingers) i think that i may have actually gotten gauge.  we'll see when it dries!