This is me, biting off more than I can chew.

So, since I can't actually bite into anything more appetizing than an egg white right now, apparently I've decided that I'm going to jump into more projects than I could possibly hope to complete in a timely manner.

At two weeks into this diet, I've actually done... okay. Very well the first week, and while I was very good the second week, I lost a sum total of one pound. (this is why I invariably quit diets. All that work for practically no return.) So I opted to indulge myself in a little yarn, in order to do another Kal-ish sort of thing.

The thing in question is Camp Loopy, brought to us by The Loopy Ewe. Since I am a poor college student, I have neither the time nor the money to travel to cool knitting retreats, but this one is a strictly at home event. Sheri is coming up with three projects that must be completed within the alloted time frame - a month each - and if we do so using yarn purchased at The Loopy Ewe during the correct timeframe.... well, I suck at explaining this. Go check it out, knit some cool stuff, possibly win Wollmeise.

Long story short (too late!), I used my yarn!diet goodwill from the past two weeks to buy the yarn to make my first Camp Loopy project, which will be the Elisa Shawl in Madelinetosh DK, in the colorways Ink and Ginger.

Less impressive photos of the actual yarn will ensue upon its arrival, since I stink at photography and ganked these straight from the madelinetosh website, and cropped them just to give an idea of colors. I apologise if this offends the people there, and if they e-mail me telling me I'm a horrible yarn-picture-stealer and threated to sue, I'll surely take them down posthaste.

I refuse to confess that this color choice has anything to do with Harry Potter. Okay, okay... truth be told, I'm not by any means the biggest Potter Geek, but I like the series  first five books pretty well, and enjoy the world Rowling created, even if I don't think her writing is all that and a big bag of chips. Since I probably need something in my wardrobe that is not green, I went with the closest facsimilies of dark blue and bronze that I could find in yarn format. While I'm sure other people could do better, others would complain that I'm using the book colors instead of the movies' blue and silver, and still others would just complain for the sake of complaining, this is what I decided. It works for me. Plus, all Potter-y aside, I think they're gorgeous colors and work well together. Now we'll just see if I can knit them into a shawl in under a month while dealing with school and my fountain pen shawl at the same time.

Hah!

My self-control is incredible.

So after giving it no thought whatsoever, and mostly because I was up really late one night and I'm the most curious being ever born, who can also write run-on sentences like nobody's business, I found myself stalking for the Wollmeise update. So many knitters couldn't possibly be wrong, right?

So, the update happened, and before I knew what I had done, I was checking out with a skein of twin in my cart, colorway Aquarius. Then, I went to bed. For a few weeks, other than the momentary, "what the heck did I spend Euros on through paypal?", I completely forgot about this late-night yarn binge.

Then, I got a notice in the mail. I had a piece of registered mail at the post office, and I could pick it up the next day. Registered mail for me? What the heck could that be?

Oh yeah....


So naturally, upon seeing that the package was from Germany, I ripped it open the second I got back to my car, where the nosey people at the post office couldn't watch me have a seizure over yarn.

Okay, maybe not a seizure, but... well, it is confirmed. There is a reason that knitters stay up to ridiculous hours of the night and stare blankly at a grey screen hitting the refresh button over and over again. And believe it or not, it isn't drugs or alcohol.



It's this.







And for good measure, the ridiculously close-up shot that my camera can't really handle...



It's a tight little skein, but full of saturated goodness, and I already have visions of what it needs to be dancing through my brain. Socks make the most sense, both because I like to knit socks, and because it's an 80/20 blend that would be perfect for socks. On the other hand, I'm open to ideas, if anyone is willing to share. (I am not, however, open to sharing, regardless of any ideas about that...)