Update, with lots of pics!

Time for a big photo-heavy update. First, here's my finished poncho for my 6-year-old niece:

And a close-up of the scalloped edge detail (also, you can see the color of the yarn better here):

And a picture of the poncho-in-progress for my 4-year-old niece:

And, last but not least, I've been making stitch markers again (these and others for sale at The Smiling Turtle):

I am very happy with the way the first poncho came out. I'd started the second one with a smaller hook, but then had to frog it and re-start with the same hook size as I'd used for the first one, since it was coming out too small.

I got to go to a Stitch and Bitch last Wednesday! I just found out recently that it meets down the street from where I work. Sweet! I had so much fun meeting people and crocheting. I plan to go back as often as I can (probably almost every week).

I have become somewhat obsessed with Noro Taiyo yarn. Here's a pic of the 1 skein I own:

It is so beautiful! It is telling me that it wants to become fingerless gloves. Unfortunately, it's also telling me that it wants to be a scarf and a hat. NEED MORE!!! Heehee. Luckily, my birthday is coming up... ;)

I bought it (and some Lorna's Laces Honor and Queensland Sugar Rush) at Fresh Purls in Providence, RI when I was there visiting some friends for Columbus Day weekend. It's a really nice store, with very helpful and friendly saleswomen.

Guess that's it for now! I'm glad I got some good sunlight for picture-taking today.

Before I forget...

Two groups on Flickr I wanted to post about.

Free Knit and Crochet Patterns - pictures of people's FOs made from free patterns, with links to the patterns! What a great idea.

Yarn Bouquet - pictures of how people have decorated their living spaces with yarn! Lots of fun. I'm still trying to think of something clever to do and post. It would have to be some kind of wall hanging, since it's not like I have any free surface space in my li'l studio. (Though I do have some ideas for temporary yarny decorations that I could post. Heheh...)

Losing patience with Flickr...

The deal with Flickr: you pay $25 to get a "pro" account and store as many pictures as you want, or you get a free account and you only get a certain amount of storage space. That much, I'm OK with. What I'm decidedly not OK with, is the fact that your old photos "disappear" to make room for the new ones. You don't have a choice as to which ones get "archived" (meaning no one can see them but gee, they're still on the site somewhere and you'll just have to take their word for it).

Are there any free, reliable image hosting services that don't do this crap, but that also do the image resizing for you? (I really like the fact that Flickr makes your images into different sizes for you while still keeping the original.) I don't need unlimited image hosting, but I do want to select which of my photos are kept and which ones are not.

Apart from the fact that I don't have an extra $25 right now, I wouldn't choose to spend it on image hosting if I did. (YARN! Need YARRRRRN! And BEADS!) ;D