A Weekend of Finishing

I hope you all had a good weekend! I got some much-needed extra sleep and spend some nice time with my family. I also did a lot of finishing.

First, there was the handspun. I did manage to ply the entire skein on Friday, but I didn't get around to skeining and washing it until Saturday. I realized that I never took a photo of the fiber before I split it up, so I stole borrowed David's photo:

I wanted to break up the colors as much as possible, so first I folded the length of fiber into thirds and tore it at the folds and then I split up each of the resulting pieces into four thinner strips. I spun my default yarn -- a three-ply fingering weight -- and ended up with approximately 414 yards.

These colors aren't as exciting to me as some others I've spun recently, but I think they make for an excellent neutral. And I think that at some point I'd like to knit another colorwork sweater out of handspun, so some neutral background colors will come in handy. I was surprised at how often the lighter and darker colors seemed to come together, but I guess being totally random in how I was spinning, it was the luck of the draw.

This is the 20th bag of Southern Cross Fibre I've spun so far this year, so I'm well on my way to hitting my revised goal of 24. I haven't yet picked out what I'm spinning next, but it will be something with brighter colors!

I also finished up my mother's socks over the weekend:

These mostly match up in the stripe sequence, though I had to cheat it a little after turning the heel (I removed a little bit of yarn before starting the gusset). The end of the toes are a little off if you look closely, but I really don't think anyone will. I used my typical sock recipe on 64 stitches using Fibernymph Dye Works Bounce in the colorway Cosmic. It's an older colorway, and the skein had been in my stash for several years. I'm putting these away for Chanukah; I actually knit them in front of my mother several times, but I doubt she'll remember that when she opens these in December.

This week is going to be a rough one: I got sent a 55-page high-profile report late on Friday that I will have to edit this week, which means less time for reading and crafting. I plan to keep up with my usual blogging schedule, but I may not have too much content to share. Today I also have to go into the office to have a one-on-one meeting with our new big boss (she's meeting with everyone individually to get to know us and to get a sense of what we do), and on top of all that I may not be able to get out for a run due to thunderstorms moving through the area. I guess it's a good thing that knitting reduces stress for me! Here's hoping you have a calmer week ahead and your Monday is off to a good start.