Slip-ups

Since the end of the Tour de Fleece, while I've still been spinning, I've turned my attention back to my knitting. After finishing the giant shawl, my priority is once again projects for my collection of patterns. The next project on the needles was thus the fifth sample for the collection.

While this pattern should have been an easy knit, it was not without its difficulties at the beginning. Apparently the heat we've been experiencing for the past week or so has been frying my brain, and my failure to do simple math correctly resulting in my having to rip out and restart this project not once, not twice, but four times. Yes, you read that right -- it took four attempts before I realized where I went wrong. Luckily, once I got past the initial hurdle, things have been moving along relatively smoothly.

This pattern is a little pair of slipper socks, so really just a heel and a foot. The yarn I'm using is from the Ross Farm, and it's a very woolly three-ply Shetland. It's labeled a sport weight, but it's a very fluffy yarn and probably knits up more like a DK. I'm working it on size 2 (2.75 mm) needles and getting a dense fabric with a gauge of about 6 stitches per inch. And because it's very much a rustic farm wool, I find myself a bit covered with fuzz and little bits of VM after I knit with it for a while. I rather like it, though, despite the debris. It's really nice to knit with a yarn that reminds you so much of the sheep!

I've already finished the first slipper of the pair and am about halfway through the second, so I don't think I'll have trouble finishing these up by the end of the week. That leaves me with three samples left to knit for the collection. I'd hoped to have everything done by the end of August, but the three that remain are the largest patterns, all using multiple skeins of yarn, so it's going to be a busy month. This is the one main benefit to self-publishing, I suppose; if I miss my self-imposed deadline, it's really not that big a deal. I am planning to stagger the release of the patterns anyway, so I can always put the bigger patterns toward the end of the release schedule. I will say that I am looking forward to finishing them up so I can do some knitting for me. As much as I enjoy designing, it is work knitting, and it's a nice change to be able to let someone else do the math for me!