Still churning away on Pikachu, start of a scarf

Working on the pikachu is pretty tedious, but finally progressing.Right now it's just stockinette in the round on tiny needles (so tightly knit). I've got about one more inch on the body/head section to do before I move stitches from either end off onto waste yarn (for the ears) and seam the top. Then there are the small diameter ears, the small legs and arms, the tail and the finishing embroidery/facial pieces.   I'm hoping to get him finished by the end of next week.

Since it's soooo tight knitting and slow and a little boring... I started a scarf for little 'a' to match his black hat. I'm using Red Heart With Love yarn which is dense and thick and really nice for an acrylic. I'm basically knitting a tube of stockinette, but with a ready made seam at the bottom and it will end up having a seam at the top. I'm also adding a single stripe at each end about 6" from the end... in part to help it match the hat and in part to help give me something interesting. I'm at about 10" now, so a good LONG while before I get to the next stripe. And it's basically stockinette in the round - but in black. Good news is that I'm using size 10 needles so at least the knitting is nice and loose and relaxing. I'm spending a lot of time while knitting it thinking about how the thick scarf is going to be very warn and sooo soft due to the yarn... and hoping it will help keep hims a lot warmer this winter.

Normally I have a half-dozen projects in play at any given time. I've got a couple of WIP projects that will either get frogged or worked on next month. In the meantime, I'm down to one WIP that I started a couple of months ago. It's a scrap yarn project to help me use up a ton of tiny 'ends'. I was using bits and pieces that were averaging around 1 - 3 yards to knit on the 3 I-cords and the braiding them... to eventually get wound up and sewn into a braided rug. Because it had been almost a week since I'd had any ends to add to it, I dug into my scrap basket... and found a couple balls of yarn that are probably 5 to 20 yards. I took the time to add three of them to the length... and have one more that I can add today... and I am sure that I can dig through the basket to find more. Funny enough - being I-cords... it's basically 6 knit stitches, repeated... which means that it's probably been a week since I've done a purl stitch (except in knitting classes). But by adding the variety of colors, and the unpredictability of working on a scrap I-cord braid with whatever colors I find next... I'm really enjoying it. I can't wait to see what the next section of braid is going to look like.