It's hard to believe it's the end of August. Summer 2005 has just flown by in a hot and humid haze -- you got to love the alliteration there! I hate to say it, but it's time to start planning for the holidays, especially if I'm going to be knitting gifts for friends and family. Things got a little out of control towards the end of the holiday season last year, so I didn't really get to enjoy the lead up to Christmas as much as I should have. I'm one of those people who always likes to learn from their mistakes, and if planning ahead requires ordering my Christmas cards in August and writing them in September, so be it. My goal is just to enjoy the season a little more, and not get so stressed out about everything that (I feel) needs to be done.

As far as the knitted gifts go, I think bags and scarves are my best bet as they knit up relatively quickly. The Booga Bag is always a good choice and I can see one or two people getting a kick out of that. I'm considering the Marakesh Shoulder Bag as a gift for my step-mother-in-law but I'll have to wait and see if I like the look of the finished project. As annoying as it is to knit, I do like the look of the Eros Eyelet Scarf. It's just a really trendy piece, something that I can see my female friends incorporating into their wardrobes. We'll see.

It has recently been brought to my attention that I have inadvertently been stealing bandwidth from various sites. Yikes! I had no idea that this would be such a big deal, but it got me booted out of a queue to join a knitting ring. Most of the photo/button links were temporary solutions until I could figure out how to get images into my blogger.com sidebar -- things do get a little tricky when you don't have your own server. In any event, I think I've managed to rectify the situation, but who knows what other rules I've broken in the process.

In knitting news, the front panel of the Marakesh Shoulder Bag is complete and looks quite lovely.

There's something to be said for piece and quiet. It's nice to hit a lull after what turned out to be a very busy weekend. It's hard to cram two family gatherings into an eighteen hour period, but somehow we managed to pull it off. Quite honestly, I could have done without both of them. Unfortunately, I had very little control over the situations. I ended up just sucking it up and dealing with it, so both events turned out pretty well. I even managed to be pleasant. I do wish, though, that there had been more communication and considerably less inconvenience both to myself and to my husband. It really annoys me to think of just how much certain people get away with and how blind they are to the feelings of others. On a more positive note: I wore my hot pink wrap dress for the first time this weekend and absolutely rocked it!

All of this activity hasn't left too much time for knitting. I now have three -- yes, three -- projects that I'm working on. I guess this is indicative of just how split my focus is right now. No sooner do I start one project than I'm itching to start another. The latest and greatest is the Eros Eyelet Scarf that I saw when I visited my LYS this past Friday. The scarf is made by stranding two kinds of Plymouth yarn, Electra (Color #22) and Eros Glitz (Color #104), to get the lacy effect. As beautiful as the end result is, these yarns are very difficult to work with. If the pattern called for straight knitting, I doubt that I would find any fault with them. However, the pattern calls for a lot of yarn overs and purling two stitches together. Given the ladder-like nature of the Eros Glitz this is quite a challenge. I'm constantly counting stitches to make sure I have the correct number on the needles. It's also hard to tell when I've made a mistake -- I've had to frog this particular piece three times already. This is definitely a project for a more experienced knitter with time on her hands.

How do I get myself into these situations?

Personally, I blame Yarnmarket.com. Had they not featured the Marakesh Shoulder Bag in their July 2005 bulletin, I would be happily knitting my Ribby Cardi. I think it's fair to say that I quickly became obsessed with the idea of creating this bag, and I went ahead and bought the pattern and all of the materials. I'm proud to say that although the pattern leaflet has sat on my desk for the last week I actually managed to exercise some restraint and keep my paws off of it...until last night.

I can't explain why, but the urge just hit me to start knitting it. It was to the point that I actually had the Rowan Cotton Rope in hand and was getting ready to cast on the 58 stitches when tragedy struck. Reading ahead to the instructions for the first row I saw the following notation:

The husband has been doing Weight Watchers for a couple of weeks, so I've really cut back on a lot of my cooking. It's just way too difficult to try to work within his points range, especially since he usually eats/drinks something during the day that throws him off track. Plus, it's summer and I don't necessarily want to be cooking with a hot oven when the entire state is under a heat advisory. I was determined to do something, however. I was flipping through the recipe book that I bought at my friend's Pampered Chef party a few weeks ago, and came across this recipe for Salmon en Papillote (salmon cooked in parchment paper).

The recipe is very straightforward: Cook 2/3 cup of orzo pasta according to the directions on the box. Drain. Mix in 2 plum tomatoes (diced and seeded) and 1/4 cup of scallions; you can also add black olives, but I chose not to. Add some lemon zest, a tablespoon of basil pesto (I used store bought), and salt and pepper to taste. Spoon 3/4 of mixture onto right side of folded piece of parchment paper. Top with 4-6oz salmon fillet (skinned and rinsed). Top salmon with thin layer of basil pesto. Fold left side of parchment paper over salmon; fold and crimp sides to create a packet. Place packets on a baking sheet and place in a pre-heated 425 degree oven for 13-15 minutes, or until salmon is flaky. Remove from oven. Cut an 'X' in the middle of the packet, fold back the points, et voila! Serve with a side of vegetables, or anything else that you think works.

The flavors of this dish are fantastic. The basil pesto and lemon zest do a lot to enhance the taste of the salmon and the orzo. The tomatoes and the scallions also add color and texture. I guess the real attraction, though, is that this gourmet-style meal takes next to no time to prepare/cook, making it perfect for people with busy lifestyles.

And what was hubby's reaction? Well, he loved it, but he got hit hard with the points. Apparently Weight Watchers can't differentiate between good fat and bad fat -- go figure. Diet or no diet, this is a dish that I plan on keeping in my repertoire.