Yesterday and today , I went outside and took better photos of my yarn and swatches (I admit Sarah and George took some of the pictures — but I uploaded most of them all by myself).

Here is a new swatch — I wanted to do part of the cowl capelet in an off-set brick-like pattern, so Iconverted the rib to a block pattern (kind of tricky!).  The lower part shows the pattern with 4 rows of the regular pattern followed by 4 rows of the shifted off-set part.  The upper part is 6 rows of each — which, I think, looks better.

I will probably try an 8 rows/8 rows repeat too — just to see if it shows the pattern better (I did not hold the mohair with the wool in this swatch — so the real piece will be fuzzier).

I trid out the Channel Island Cast-On (featured in Knitting Daily — the email newsletter Friday or Saturday, I think it was Friday?).  It is one good-looking cast-on for 1×1 ribs! 

The Wrong Side is interesting too:

And yesterday on my walk I passed the Dollar Store and noticed that they had some really nice-looking skulls and skeletons.  I didn't have any money on me — but spent  the rest of the walk with visions of knitting little woolen caps and scarves for them! I went back later and bought some — altho I do not know if I will actually do any skeleton knitting.  Just a fun thought!  But I like the idea of doing some theme decorating for the fall and was pleased to find I could get a bunch of rather realistic bone-colored skeletons and skulls so cheaply!