the most successful thing i ever knit

J is claiming that the most successful thing I ever knit is the toy for the cat. "She uses it *every* day," he says. It's true. She spent a few hours this morning batting it around. She even sleeps with it next to her as you can see from this picture. It's beginning to fall apart from overuse. I'll have to make another soon.

In other news, I'm highly intrigued by Japanese knitting magazines now. There is Keito Dama, a hand knitting magazine, and Za Za, a machine knitting magazine. Or, take a look at these wedding dress covers of Keito Dama here. Those wacky Japanese! K, we need to put Japanese bookstore on our list of places to stop in SF! I called the nearest Japanese bookstore to me, and it looks like the next issue should be out at the end of the month, just when I'll be over there.

So in my anxiousness to start Carla (I'm still waiting for my yarn), I decided to see what it would look like knit up with my Artful Yarns Vaudeville.

I've learned several things. It is *really* stretchy. It's 32" wide unstretched, but I'd rather have it at 28! Even though the Vaudeville looks nothing like the Cotton Tape knit up (way bulkier), I like how it looks, so I think I will frog and redo this narrower as a Carla-wannabe. Size 15 needles are unwieldy beasts!

EDIT: Ignore those pictures! I have been doing the yfwd in the wrong direction! Which is effectively the same as twisting all the knits (or knitting through the back), and that is why it looks so dense. Doing it the right way is *so* much easier and is moving much more quickly. Updated photos tomorrow...