Little Bits of Everything

Now that I am home and reunited with the full stash, it seems I am getting an urge to do all the crafts. First there was spinning over the weekend. Then I decided to play around with dyeing some yarn (really just playing -- I used food coloring) to use to make Rainbow a new cowl. This was a spare skein of Knit Picks Capra in a dark gray color that we tried to make purple:

I'd say these are less than stellar results, but Rainbow is satisfied, so I'll be winding this little skein up tonight and likely casting on the new cowl sometime this week.

Of course, there has been knitting. My first order of business when we got back (after adding twist to that skein of handspun) was finishing up these slipper socks. I actually completed the knitting on Sunday night but had to finish weaving in the ends last night and then blocked them overnight on the radiator.

I've already got the pattern draft written out (by hand), so I've got to type that up and get some photos this weekend so I can send it off to my tech editor to put in her queue.

I'm still working on Rainbow's Felici socks, with the leg of the second sock nearly finished.

And as if all this varied crafting hasn't been enough, I decided to pull out my crochet bag last night and plan to do some more work on this evening as well. I'd really like to get this project finished up in the next month, so it's time to buckle down and do it. By the time I finish the current scrap of yarn on this, I'll have more than 900 yards crocheted up, with a good amount of scrap yarn still available to be added. I'd like the bag to be rather deep, so I expect I will use most if not all of what I've set aside.

This project is doing double duty of using up some stash yarn (and old stash yarn, at that) and being a good alternative to knitting, as at the moment I have a sore spot on my left index finger that's making knitting a little painful because I tend to push the tip of the needle with that finger as I knit. I am still managing to work on the socks a bit by keeping a bandaid on the finger, but that makes knitting a bit awkward and slower than usual. When I crochet, that finger stays up in the air to hold the yarn, so there's no worry of aggravating the sore spot. I'd also like to develop my crochet skills a bit in the coming year, so working on this bag is helping to improve my muscle memory toward that end.