I'm Back :-D

So, I finally realized that it wasn't just my being sick for the past 3 weeks (I've been well for 1 now...yay!) that caused my decrease in knitting activity, but that I was bored with the project I was working on - the green and blue tie - probably because there was nothing new and interesting about it...no cool new stitches or techniques to learn (although it is my first attempt at striping - not the most fun technique to me).  Well, I started over on the Barbi cap-sleeved shrug from Heather Dixon's Not Your Mama's Knitting and looked at four different books to figure out how to do the kfb or knit front and back or bar increase or increase in an existing stich (the reason why I had stopped this project originally)...why does this stitch have so many friggin' names?!?  It was so rewarding when I finally figured out how to do the stitch and to find that it is such an easy stitch! - great instructions found in Jennifer Worick's Getting Started Knitting!  I love the Patons Rumor yarn that I'm using it's so soft and has such fun colors - I can't wait to see the end result, but the actual knitting process is a lot of fun at this point as well since I'm practicing some new stitches/techniques now :-D  Here's a little pic of me happily holding the beginnings of my first "sweater."  Yay for new-found knitting happiness :-P