Did I buy that?

Last night I came home and went through my chores like a whirling dervish so I could get to knitting. The back of Juli's barter cardi is almost done, but I was too tired to get through the rest of it. I only have 4 more rows of the colored pattern to do, and then a few more rows of the main color while decreasing for the raglan sleeve. This is my first raglan sweater, and I can't say that the directions that this pattern is giving me are helping any. Most of the problem is centered around incorporating the color chart along with the raglan decreases. The directions couldn't have been any more unintelligible unless they were in written in Chinese! Now that I've had a bit of experience, it's easy enough to find the center of the chart and the center of the sweater piece and count back to figure out which stitch to start with on the chart. Bleh.

Monday was the day I broke down. One LYS was having a 20% off moving sale, and I went with a couple of my knitting compatriots to have a gander. In my many circuits around the store, I kept coming back to this lovely superwash merino, Aurora 8. I've never worked with it before, but I think I'll enjoy it. It's quite soft, in a lovely dove gray color, and seeing as it's meant for a Christmas gift to a male friend the superwash aspect is perfect. There went my "no buying yarn until August" rule. I'll be the first to admit I'm not perfect, but I figure it's a justified purchase because a) I've been working on my stash reduction and I've been doing a good job of it, and b) the yarn isn't meant for me, ultimately.