I made a little promise to myself that I would be better about my frivolous spending this year. I say it every year, but as I creep closer to retirement age (yes it’s still a long way off, but each year brings me that much closer), I’m thinking more and more about needing a nest egg. I have RRSPs through work, but I don’t think it will be enough, so I need to squirrel away as much cash as I can. So this is the year to make a REALLY good start.

But  before this year rolled in (like literally the day before), I went on a little last blast spree. I ordered  a few new dresses from Old Navy (and by few, I mean four…)

And I placed an order with Knit Picks. I was very excited to discover they now not only accept Paypal, they finally have free shipping to the Great White North!

Burton was very excited too!

In that box was several luscious skeins of Chroma Twist Bulky

They will be used to make myself a Carbeth Cardigan. You may recall that I started one about this time last year in cotton, but it got put in a permanent time out. You may also recall that I said I didn’t want to knit myself any more cardigans until I lost some more weight… but… this cardigan is worn with a fair amount of positive ease, so it shouldn’t be too bad if I do lose the weight (unlike my favoured style of cardigans, which are all worn with negative ease). Plus the yarn was a great price – and do you know how hard it is to find inexpensive bulky superwash  wool? Really hard.  I wanted superwash because I find it much less itchy than regular wool.

Mom helped me get over the minimum for free shipping with these pretty balls of Chroma fingering.

They were also an excellent price. She loves gradient and stripers for her circular sock machine – she can whip out a pair in no time.

And, what actually brought me to the Knit Picks site was an offer of a free canvas tote with orders over $50. Another goal is to cut down on our plastic consumption, and I do love a good tote bag. They had lots of prints to choose from, but you can bet your bippy, I went with cats!

Because why would you not??