I LOVE ETSY

I always love to buy handmade items.  Mostly items that I can't make myself, but sometimes, even items I could make, but just don't feel like doing it.  Here are my newest finds.
I guess this is called a "yarn buddy" . I never saw one before, but the other day while scrolling through blogs, another knitter was raving about hers, so I did a search and found CRAFTINESS

The craftsmanship is wonderful.  The wood is smooth, and beautiful and the top spins freely.  They are reasonably priced, and they got it to me within a few days.  Who knew?  I have never seen such a thing until now, but I am going to use it alot. 

Another thing that I love are shawl pins.  They are kind of hard to find.  Especially good quality pins. 
But look at this lovely copper shawl pin that I found at Nicholas and Felice  It is a heavy gauge copper, and it is beautiful. 

I recently finished this shawl:

And I have decided to finally knit a sweater.  I knitted a couple of cabled Aran sweaters for the sons of a friend about 25 years ago, and I knitted a little one for my son, but I never finished my own and eventually ripped it back and put the yarn away. 
I had a bunch of yarn that I bought to knit a big round shawl.  This is what it looked like when I first started:

I was almost finished, when I realized that I had made a mistake somewhere.  At that point, I had over 700 stitches on  the needle, so I decided that I didn't need another big shawl, and I tore it all out.
I decided to give the whole shawl knitting a rest and I wanted to knit something different so I used the yarn to start a cardigan for myself

This is the bottom "ribbed" edge.   The pattern is called BERNHARDT and the finished cardigan will look like this: HERE
I like cardigans, and it is hard to find a nice one that is actually warm.

So everything is going well, I need to get back behind the sewing machine.  I'm sending my daughter off to the Air Force tomorrow.  It is something that she really wanted.  She is old enough to make her own decisions, she has college under her belt, and she lived for nearly 3 years on a combined Army/AirForce base, so I figure she knows what is in store.
It doesn't mean that I won't think and worry about her constantly. They may grow up, but they will always be my babies.. I can't help it. 

I hope that you all have a great week!!!

Teri