Hello friends.  I hope that your New Year is going well.  I can’t believe that we are already over half way into January!  I have a funny feeling the rest of the year will fly by also.  So, here is to taking one day at a time and enjoying each day doing whatever makes us happy.

So…what have I been up to? Well, I am still stitching on Mirabilia’s  Ella, the Frog Princess  and trying not to let all the yellow get me down! Here she is as I left her last night:

As you can tell from the photo, I have a long way to go. I am trying not to let that sea of yellow get the best of me.  Thankfully I have some pretty flowers to give me a boost of color when I get too bored of the yellow.  I have been overly tired lately, so the progress has been slow.  But I am still enjoying her, so far.

A few weekends ago, I found a couple of knitting shops that I had never been to.  Here is what I added to my stash 😉

Yarn and needles to knit a pretty little shoulder shawl from the book shown above.  Forgot to take a photo of the actual shawl.  But I will when I start it.  I also bought my first Addi needles.  I have heard they are nice, but have never tried them before.  I am not a fan of circular needles, but this pattern called for circulars, in a size I knew I didn’t have.  So I will let you know how I like them when I get to knitting on them.

And from the other shop that I visited, I found this:

This shawl was actually done up in the store and I fell in love with it immediately.  The yarn it calls for is Saki, a hand dyed yarn by Prism.  The color I chose is Portofino and I can’t wait to see how it knits up.  I have actually started it and this is where I left off with this one:

I started with 11 stitches and increased up to 161 stitches in just that little bit!  It is full of pattern and the last row that I did, I ended up with too many stitches, so had to knit it back 2 rows.  I have put the purl row back in, but was a little afraid to pick it back up for fear of making another mistake.  I have been too tired lately and I know better than to tackle a pattern when my brain is not up full speed.  I am loving how the colors are knitting up  already.

So, that is what I have been up to this month.  What are you working on?