Distracted by the Shiny and New

I was so hoping that I'd make great progress on Rainbow's sweater once I started taking it to work to pull out during my lunch breaks, but I got a wee bit distracted. Rainbow had a sleepover at her grandparents' on Saturday, so the Mister and I went to go see La La Land. I find it really hard to sit through a movie with nothing to do with my hands, so I grabbed a skein of sock yarn from the stash, wound it into a cake, and cast on. By the end of the movie, I had nearly 5 inches of a sock leg knit. And I'm so enamored with the stripes that I've swapped out Rainbow's sweater for these socks for my lunchtime knitting.

This is one of my favorite sock yarns, Fibernymph Dye Works Bounce (a superwash merino/nylon blend) in the colorway Rainbow Riot. I've always loved rainbow stripes, and in fact I've got a cowl I knit from yarn spun from fiber in the same colorway that I bought from Lisa years ago. I'm hoping to get the socks finished up in time to wear on Inauguration Day -- I don't like to get into politics on a knitting blog, but suffice it to say that I am a proponent of kindness and inclusiveness, so I want to show that with my socks. I'm about half an inch away from the toe of the first sock.

I haven't been working on the sweater at home, either, as I've been spending the evenings I have been knitting working on the baby blanket. I've managed to finish one square thus far and the second is nearly done. I realize that they don't look all that great in their unblocked state, but I'm really liking the pattern.

The two squares will have used less than one full skein of yarn, and I have five skeins, so it's likely I'll have a little bit leftover, perhaps enough to make a baby hat to go with it. The squares are definitely moving along a bit faster as I've gotten used to the pattern, but I'm starting to feel a bit of time pressure to get it done in time (my friend is due toward the beginning of February, and I don't want to be madly stitching up to the last minute). Thankfully we do have a long weekend this weekend due to Martin Luther King Jr. Day on Monday -- all three of us are actually off -- and the Mister is planning to take Rainbow skiing on Saturday, so I'm hopeful that I'll be able to get in some extra knitting time and perhaps get an additional square or two done.

Speaking of this weekend, I wanted to mention for those of you in the Pittsburgh area that the Steel City Fiber Collective is hosting a pattern party this Saturday from 2 to 4 p.m. to celebrate the release of my Stitchburgh collection. I'll be there with all my pattern samples, so you can see them in person and ask any questions you might have. The collective also will have kits available to knit several of the patterns for those of you interested in a truly local knitting project. I hope to see you there!