Already Looking Ahead

I've still got both the handspun cowl and the crochet bag in progress, but not being done with them yet doesn't mean that I'm not already planning for the next projects. I think I mentioned last week that I'd ordered yarn from Knit Picks. It came earlier this week, and I finally got a chance to snap some photos (thanks to my lightbox, because there is no natural light happening these days when I'm actually home on a weekday).

First, I ordered three skeins of Comfy Fingering for a baby sweater I need to knit for a shower next month.

The family I'm knitting for lives in Miami, so I thought a bright color in a cotton blend would be best. They aren't finding out the sex of the baby, so I'm going to be making Hyphen, which I think is suitable for boys and girls. I'll be casting on as soon as I finish up the crochet bag.

I also ordered yarn for a sweater for me. I've had my eye on Helenium since it came out, and I finally decided that it was time to knit it. I may even attempt it for the Ravellenic Games, which seems doable considering that it's knit in worsted weight and most of it is stockinette in the round. I ordered KP's new Simply Wool Worsted, which is completely undyed and comes only in the natural colors of the sheep. Apparently it's been a popular yarn, because a bunch of colors were out of stock, so the shade I ended up with is a cream with a hint of gray called Wendy. For the brioche colorwork, I ordered a skein of Chroma Worsted in Lupine.

The Simply Wool reminds me a lot of Cascade 220, a yarn I have used a lot and love, so I'm sure I will love this. I'm a tad bit worried about the Chroma bleeding, so I may skein it up and give it a citric acid treatment just in case. The games don't start until February 9, so I have a couple of weeks to do that and swatch. It's been a while since I knit myself a sweater, so I'm excited to get going! That excitement should be a good motivator to finish up my current projects, too.

Feeling Bicraftual

I fear my posts for the next week or so are going to be very repetitive, as I'm continuing to work on the same two projects (three, if you count spinning). First, there's my handspun brioche cowl, which is coming along slowly but steadily. I posted this photo on Instagram yesterday and it got more likes than I've ever received, so I guess it's a good project!

I'm further along than what's shown here, but the light has already gone for the day and I didn't want to bother taking a shoddy photo.

While I work on that project during the day (a bit before work and during my lunch breaks), I've been doing a lot of crocheting at night. I think I'm getting close to being done with my giant bag. In case you were wondering just how big it is, well, it's now large enough to fit an 8-year-old:

Apparently it also makes a very cozy hood if your head is a little cold:

I should be able to finish up the last partial skein of Cascade 220 tonight and then I have some bits and bobs of some old Knit Picks yarn to work in. There's already more than 1,000 yards of yarn in this project, and I expect I'll have at least a couple of hundred more by the time I'm ready to call it done. Felting this should be a fun experiment -- I might try felting in the dryer just for the heck of it -- and then I have some leather purse handles that I'm planning to sew on. I'm excited by how much my crochet has seemed to have improved over the course of this project, and I'm eager to try some more. I might make some felted bowls with some of the scraps I still have in the stash (because felting will hide my inconsistencies), and perhaps sometime this year I'll try an actual pattern.

The Last Bobbin

Just a short post from me tonight, as I've just spent a couple of hours cooking and cleaning and I'm about ready to drop.

I'm still spinning Buoy for my sweater, but the end of the third skein is in sight. I'm officially onto the third and final bobbin, and I'm more than a quarter of way into that. Here are the two finished bobbins, patiently waiting for their triplet to be finished so they can be plied:

For now, I'm ignoring the fact that I have at least two more skeins to spin for this project (perhaps more, because now I'm thinking I might want to do some smaller skeins so the sleeves match). I'll be happy to finish up this skein and may perhaps take a bit of a break with some other fiber in other colors. With any luck, you'll be seeing a finished skein in this spot next Sunday!

Just Too Cute

This has been a decidedly weird week -- not work or school on Monday, plus a two-hour delay for Rainbow (and thus me) yesterday -- so I am having trouble remembering what day it is without checking the calendar, but thankfully my crafting has not suffered. After finishing up Rainbow's projects over the weekend, I was feeling like I was on a roll, so I promptly cast on and finished a little hat in a matter of two evenings.

Pre-blocking FO shot

Pattern: Happy Happy Birthday Hat by NellKnits
Yarn: scraps of Knit Picks Swish Worsted (the cake and flame), Cascade 220 Superwash (the icing), and Cascade 220 Superwash Paints (the candle)
Needles: US 6 (4.0 mm) Addi Turbos, magic loop
Started/Completed: January 15/January 16
Mods: did an alternate decrease method for the bobbles

This was a fun, quick little knit, albeit a bit fiddly at times (bobbles, I'm looking at you). It's destined to be a gift for a family friend who will turn 1 next month. I was a little concerned that it was too small, but I was able to block it out much larger than it looks here and I think it will be okay for fit. As noted above, the one very minor modification I made was to change the way the bobbles are decreased. They're created by increasing from one stitch to five, and the pattern calls for decreasing back to one by knitting the five stitches together. My needles were just blunt enough to preclude such a maneuver, however, so I figured out an alternate way to achieve the same effect: I slipped the first two stitches (separately) from the left to the right needle so that the center stitch of the bobble was the first one on the left needle. Then I passed the stitch to the left of that stitch over it and off the needle. I transferred the stitch to the right needle and passed the stitch to the right of it over and off the needle. I transferred the stitch back to the left needle and repeated these two steps once more, essentially binding off the two stitches on either side of the center stitch of the bobble, and then knit the remaining stitch. I'm sure this is a legitimate decrease that someone has already thought up, but I kind of made it up in the moment and it seemed to work well.

Though there's still yarn remaining from this little hat, it feels really good to have done an entire project using only stash yarn (especially considering I ordered some new yarn online yesterday -- but more on that when it arrives).

Meanwhile, my lunchtime knitting has become my handspun brioche cowl, which is moving along slowly but steadily. I think that if it were in a single color it might become a bit of a slog, but the frequent color changes due to the small amounts of fiber that were combined is making for an interesting knit. It's somewhat akin to knitting with self-striping yarn; there's definitely an urge to keep going to get to the next color.

Yes, that is sunshine on my knitting!

I'm also continuing to work on my giant crocheted bag, though I don't have a photo to share (I'll need to get one this weekend when I can get it in decent natural light). I've noticed that as I work on it more, my speed is increasing, which is a good sign. Ideally, I'd like to get it done by the end of the month, though we'll see if that actually happens.

The weekend ahead looks pretty calm; we've got nothing on the calendar other than a birthday lunch for my father-in-law on Saturday. Though of course there will be the usual errands and chores to get done, that means extra crafting time for me!

A Bit of a Finishing Spree

I'm not sure what came over me over the long weekend, but I managed to finish up two projects, both of them for Rainbow. First, there was her new brioche cowl, which I was aiming to get done in time for her to wear it skiing on Sunday. I managed that with plenty of time to spare though not much yarn -- those little snippets you see here were all that was left after binding off and weaving in the ends.

The colors are, in reality, a bit brighter than this, but I think the winter light combined with the fact that the base yarn was a dark gray make it really hard to capture them. I didn't use a pattern for this; I just cast on until I had enough stitches to comfortably fit around a 16 inch needle and then worked in brioche until I was almost out of yarn, then bound off. It turned out a bit wider and shorter than I would have liked, but Rainbow was elated by it and reported that it kept her very warm while skiing with no itchiness.

Not long after that was done, I finished up her new pair of socks -- and this time the stripes match up perfectly!

Pattern: Vanilla Is the New Black by Anneh Fletcher
Yarn: Knit Picks Felici in Hibiscus
Needles: US 0 (2.0 mm) Addi Sock Rockets, magic loop
Started/Completed: December 25, 2017/January 13, 2018
Mods: used backward-loop m1s instead of lifted m1s

These really did not take much time at all to knit; they were started when we went to the movies on Christmas Day, but then I don't think I touched them again until the day we came home from our trip, so most of the knitting has been done during my lunch breaks the past week. I made the pattern again at Rainbow's request, and I once again made the legs rather long so that they're nearly knee socks on her. I think you could say that she likes them -- this was her reaction upon receiving them:

If all goes according to plan this evening, I should have another FO by my next post -- a baby hat that's already at least halfway done. I didn't bother taking an in-progress photo because with something so small all you can see is the needles poking everywhere, but this is the pattern I'm using. I'm also using all scraps and leftovers from my stash!

I did cast on one new project for me over the weekend, and it's the infinity cowl I was planning with the giant skein of handspun. I haven't gotten very far, but I like what I have.

It looks like I will get some stripes, and I think the brioche stitch will help to blend the transitions really well. This is one that I'm in for the long haul; I'm working it on size 3/3.25 mm needles so as to have a relatively dense fabric and a finished cowl that's not enormous, but that means I have 250 stitches on the needles, so even one round take a bit of time. The good news is that this is simple enough that I can pick it up and knit a bit on it whenever the mood strikes without having to think too much.

Making Up for Lost Time

Usually when I return from my December vacation, I am anxious to spend extra hours at my wheel because I've gone a couple of weeks without spinning and missed it terribly. This year was no exception. Over the past week, while there has been a fair amount of the usual knitting, I've definitely spent bonus hours at my Lendrum. Aside from just getting reacquainted after the weeks away, I've been wanting to spin more to get the yarn done for my handspun Boxy because I'm anxious to start the knitting. There's still quite a lot of spinning to do, but as of yesterday I have finished the first bobbin of skein number three, which will be an 8 oz. skein.

I think the entire bobbin took me four to five hours to spin, so that means I can probably get the next two done in the next two weeks if I continue my current spinning schedule. There are still two more skeins to spin after this one is done, one of which will be another 8 oz.-er, so I think if I want to get all the spinning done in a reasonable amount of time, I really need to stay focused (and that means not getting distracted by the new fiber that's arrived over the past several weeks).

Meanwhile, I finished up two knitting projects yesterday, so that means I'm ready to cast on something new -- and this something new will be my skein of fiber minis.

That's a standard skein of sock yarn next to it, to give you an idea of just how big it is. My plan is to knit another big brioche infinity cowl, but I'll be working on small needles so that the fabric stays dense and the cowl doesn't overwhelm me. If all goes according to plan, I will be casting on later today.

Tomorrow the entire family has off for Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and it sounds like I will be spending at least part of it teaching a friend to spin! She's already a knitter but recently started doing some needle felting and then fell down the spinning rabbit hole. She's got some supplies ordered but as I have plenty of fiber on hand, I told her to come over and play. I've also convinced her to come with me to Maryland Sheep & Wool this year, so I'm hoping to have her spinning well on her own by then so she can take full advantage of all the fiber and tools at the festival.

Another Ending

I'm sorry to say that this post brings news of yet another LYS closing. Last Saturday was the last day of business for Knit One, and I made one last trip there with my friend Amy as everything in the store was 50% off. I didn't necessarily need any more yarn, but part of me want to go because Knit One was my LYS when I first got obsessively into knitting, back when I lived by myself in an apartment very close by. Despite the fact that I hadn't been to the shop in years and didn't feel much of a connection to it any longer, I did feel sad when I heard it was closing because it played a special role in a key part of my knitting career.

As you would expect, there wasn't much left in the way of stock when we got there and less still in terms of yarn I'd actually be interested in buying. But I did find a few skeins to come home with me, all intended to be used for Rainbow. First, I found three skeins of Araucania Huasco, a worsted weight merino in a lovely pale blue. With a bit more than 650 yards, I think that should be enough to do a sweater for her (we're currently eyeing the Gone Astray cardigan).

I also found this lone skein of Trekking XXL in shades of purple that will do very nicely for another pair of socks or a hat.

Finally, because buttons are always needed and can be so hard to find, I bought a tube of these clear plastic buttons because they seemed like they would go with anything. I have a total of 20 with the one that was connected to the top of the tube, so that should be enough for several sweaters.

I am still plugging away on my WIPs, though I've got one more than I did the last time I posted because I have cast on for Rainbow's cowl using the yarn we dyed. She is thrilled with how the colors turned out, which in turn makes me quite happy.

This is currently the top priority of my WIPs because I'd like to have it finished by the weekend in time for the skiing trip she and the Mister have planned for this Sunday. It's supposed to be very cold again, so she will need all the warm accessories I can get on her. We're also expecting another winter storm to move through Friday night and Saturday, so I am planning on spending most of Saturday holed up at home with my wool -- not entirely a bad way to spend a weekend, if you ask me!

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.

Back on Track

And we're back home. It was a bit of an adjustment to come home to sub-freezing temperatures, but the house is nice and toasty and there are plenty of woolens here to keep us warm.

After two weeks away from my spinning, I wasted no time getting reacquainted with my wheels. As soon as I was done unpacking and getting Rainbow to bed, I sat down at my miniSpinner to add more plying twist to my Fibernymph Dye Works Holiday Countdown skein. Really, the wheel did all the work; I just held the yarn while it added twist (one of the joys of an electric wheel). I skeined it up and soaked it again on Saturday morning, and thanks to some very warm radiators, it was dry by last night. It's much better now.

My final yardage is somewhere in the neighborhood of 605 yards, which isn't bad, especially given how much the skein shrank between finishing the first time around and adding more twist. My plan is still to knit this into another brioche infinity cowl, but I think I will likely knit it on small-ish needles so that the fabric is a bit denser and the finished object doesn't overwhelm me. I have a feeling I'll be casting on soon, just as soon as I finish a couple of things that are still in progress.

Now that we're back, I've returned to my Buoy sweater spin with the start of skein number 3. This will be a big skein -- 8 ounces of fiber -- to transition from the darkest color to the medium color. I've made just a small start thus far.

As I was splitting up fiber for this skein, I realized I made a bit of a mistake. When I bought three additional braids of fiber during my last visit to the HipStrings studio, I guess I didn't bother to look at the labels too closely. The medium color I had intended to buy was Bay, but apparently I picked up a braid of Depths, which is a very similar colorway.

Depths on the left, Bay on the right

I think that the colors are similar enough that I should be okay. Depths is slightly darker (the colors are overall the same except that Bay has the addition of the lighter blue), so it should work fine to combine it with Mussels. I'll just have to do some manual fading when I change from the transition skein to the all-Bay skein, which won't be a problem. I'll admit I did feel a bit silly when I realized my error -- but, honestly, is more Buoy really a problem? I think not.

Like All Good Things

As I type this, the sun in setting on our last day of our vacation. Tomorrow we head back to the frozen north (though the Florida weather has been unseasonably cool the last few days, which perhaps was Mother Nature's way of acclimating us), and Monday we'll all be back to the normal routine.

The past two weeks have gone by quickly, but they have been thoroughly enjoyable. I've gotten a lot of sleep and a fair amount of exercise, including getting back into running (though I'll likely take a hiatus when we get home until the weather gets warmer). I've finished two books. I've discovered that I can drink a glass of wine without ill effect. And I've done a lot of knitting.

You saw the two projects I finished in my last post, so this one is all about the WIPs. The first is a new pair of socks for Rainbow, which you saw last week. I started the first one when we headed to the movies on Christmas, and it sat for a while until after the last of my Gift-a-long projects was finished. The Mister and I went out for a date night earlier this week and went to see another movie, so naturally I picked the project back up again.

Rainbow requested another pair of Vanilla Is the New Black socks, so that's what she's getting. I am purposefully making them a bit on the larger side so that they will last longer (this girl's feet seem to grow every time I look), but the nice thing about this pattern is that aside from the heel, they are nothing but stockinette with a bit of ribbing at the cuff. They'll be coming on the plane with me tomorrow, so it's highly likely that the first sock will be done very soon.

The other project on the needles is a new design, a pair of ankle socks with a bit of colorwork for fun. I cast on the first sock on Tuesday and finished it yesterday -- I just love how fast sportweight sock knit up!

The yarn is Fibernymph Dye Works Traveler; the main color was actually the other option for the main color for the Xenolith kits with the rainbow mini skeins, and the blue is the leftover from the color I ended up using. It's a bit hard to see in the photo above (because it's not very easy to take a photo of your own foot), but there's a bit of short row shaping on the back of the ankle to create a little pull-on tab like you see on athletic socks. I'm very happy with how this turned out and had hoped to knit up the second sock today, but just as I got out of the shower after my run today, I got a migraine. It wasn't a bad one, fortunately, but it did mean that I ended up sleeping away part of the afternoon. I'll work on the second sock this evening and finish it up when we get home, and fortunately I already have a draft of the pattern written up.

While it would be nice to be on vacation indefinitely, especially during the winter, I will say that I am looking forward to being reunited with my stash and my wheels. I predict I will spend most of the coming weekend wrapped in a big sweater, drinking lots of tea, and spinning my heart out.

The Last, the First, and a Start

I was trying very hard to finish up two Gift-a-long projects by the end of 2017, but I only managed one. And I'm thrilled with it!

Pattern: Whippersnapper by Triona Murphy, size 3-6 months
Yarn: Knit Picks Stroll Tonal in Pond Tonal and Dale Garn Baby Ull in an unnamed blue
Needles: US 1 (2.25 mm) and US 2 (2.75 mm)
Started/Completed: December 22/December 31

I knit this as a gift for my best friend, who just had her third son. They live in Colorado, so I made the smallest size both because it was would be fastest to knit and because the baby is likely to need a sweater right away. Even for a fingering-weight sweater, this knit up quickly, and it was an easy knit, too. I went with the two colors I used mainly because it was what I had enough of in my stash, though I completely love Triona's original idea of using a gradient set of mini skeins for the wide stripes and a solid for the thin stripes. I can see myself knitting this again one day for Rainbow (perhaps using thicker yarn to upsize it more). My only very minor complaint is that there were a lot of ends to weave in for such a small sweater, but I didn't think carrying the blue through the green sections was going to be a good idea.

I tried very hard to finish up the second project before midnight, but frankly I wasn't sure if I'd be able to stay awake that late and I probably wouldn't have finished anyway if I had, so instead I put the knitting away, went to bed, and finished up these socks yesterday, making them my first FO of 2018.

Pattern: Intrecciate Socks by yours truly (currently only available in Knit Now but coming to my Ravelry shop later this winter)
Yarn: Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock in Pewter
Needles: US 0 (2.0 mm)
Started/Completed: December 21, 2017/January 1, 2018

I decided to knit these up because I knew I would want another sample of the pattern to photograph for republishing when I get the rights back, and I really wanted to knit them in the kind of yarn I'd originally envisioned for the yarn -- namely a semisolid yarn with multiple plies. The multicolored singles yarn I used for the original sample was fun, but I think the cables pop much better in this pair.

I'm feeling very virtuous for using up this yarn, as it had been marinating in my stash for likely a decade or longer. I received it in a swap back then, and it was old enough that Shepherd Sock still came in a 50 g put-up and you needed to buy two to make a pair of socks.

There are a couple of projects in progress back home, and I still have Rainbow's striped socks on the needles (which will see some action a little later this afternoon, as the Mister and I are headed to a movie), but I felt the urge to cast on a new design yesterday. Unfortunately it appears that I was not counting very carefully and was short two stitches, so I had to frog last night, but I cast on again this morning and all is going well.

This is yet another pair of socks, this time with a bit of colorwork for fun. I'm using Fibernymph Dye Works Traveler, Lisa's sportweight base, and I just love how quickly it knits up. Combined with the fact that these are shortie/ankle socks, I think it's fair to say that they are not going to linger on the needles for very long.

Feeding the Stash

It's another Sunday, and also the last day of the year, so despite the fact that I have no actual spinning to share, I couldn't let the day go by without a post -- at least a quick one!

In the week before we left for vacation, I received two packages with fiber. One was a braid of BFL from Fibernymph Dye Works that I won as a prize:

This colorway is called Victorian Roses.

The other package was my last shipment from FatCatKnits; Ginny has decided to close her business and gave us a chance to place one last order before she shut down her Web site. I ordered three braids, all superwash Targhee:

Harem

No Doubt

Phantasm

I am planning on spinning all three braids into sock yarn because I loved my first pair of handspun superwash Targhee so much that I want more.

~~~~~~

I'm not doing an end-of-year/year-in-review-type post, but I didn't want New Year's Eve to go by without stopping to say thank you to all of you who read this blog. There was a time not so long ago that I was considering shutting it down, but you all convinced me to keep it going, and I'm glad I did. It's been a great way to be part of the online fiber community and to keep a record of my crafting. I hope that 2018 brings many good things to you!

Adjusting Expectations

Before this vacation, when I was planning what knitting to bring, I really thought I'd be super productive and burn through all the yarn I'd brought. It turns out that I'm easily distracted, primarily by this:

It doesn't look like much, but that's the start of a 2,000-piece jigsaw puzzle that we started a few days ago. I'll sit down at it, thinking I'll work on it for a few minutes, and an hour later I'm still at it. It's fun, but it's not something I can do while knitting, obviously.

Today we spent a good part of the day in the car, driving to and from the east coast of Florida to visit relatives. That meant more than four hours in the car -- prime knitting time. I took my socks and managed to finish the first one and get a good start on the leg of the second.

Sorry for the dimly lit photo; we went directly out to dinner when we got back to this side of the state, so of course it was completely dark when we got home. In any case, these are moving right along, and fingers are crossed I'll be able to complete them by the end of the weekend.

Meanwhile, the baby sweater has a little more on it since you saw it last. I have just a handful of rounds left in the green on the body before I start the ribbing at the bottom, and my goal is to try to finish that this evening.

Once again, the color is totally off

I think the sleeves on this will fly off the needles once I get the body done, so I'm not too concerned about finishing this in time to qualify for the Gift-a-long, but it would be great to get both projects done -- not to mention that I have yarn for other projects that I could be knitting next weekend!

One other distraction has been reading. I typically get a lot of reading for pleasure done during this vacation, in part because when I read in bed before going to sleep (my normal reading time), I can actually stay up a lot later than I can normally. I was about halfway through The Glass Castle when we arrived and I finished it pretty soon thereafter. It was a good read in terms of the writing quality, but it was also a heartbreaking read. Now I'm on to The Lake House, which my mother was finishing up as I was finishing up my book (one of the great benefits of vacationing with my parents is that I have a free source of good books!). I am thoroughly enjoying it, even though I'm not very far into it just yet. If only I could read it and knit at the same time!

It Is Tuesday, Right?

There's one thing I'll say for vacation at this time of year: I am very relaxed, but that means that I often forget what day it is and have to check to keep track. I very nearly forgot this post!

The other nice thing about vacation is that I do get a lot more knitting done. I'll admit I haven't gotten as much done as I'd like (I've been a bit distracted by books and a 2,000-piece puzzle we got out yesterday), but I am determined to finish up at least two current WIPs by the end of the month.

The most pressing (and also the most far along) is a sweater that's a baby gift for my best friend, who just had her third son earlier this month. I would have had something already on the needles were it not for the fact that I completely forgot she was already due, so I'm knitting up an impossibly cute sweater in a size 3-6 months. They live in Colorado, so I figure the baby can get some use out of it even if he'll outgrow it pretty quickly -- and then it can clothe a teddy bear or something.

The pattern is Whippersnapper, a new pattern by my friend Triona Murphy. She designed it to use a set of gradient mini skeins for the stripes, but I didn't have any time to yarn shop and decided to make do with what I could find in the stash. The green is a skein of Knit Picks Stroll Tonal in Pond Tonal (which seems to have been discontinued since I bought it) and the blue is some leftover Dale Garn Baby Ull that I bought probably a decade ago. I have one more stripe of green to do on the body (plus the ribbing at the bottom) and then the sleeves, which I think will go quite quickly.

I'm also working on another sample for my Intrecciate Socks pattern for when I get the rights back and can republish in my Ravelry store. I wasn't entirely thrilled with the yarn I was given for the sample for the magazine, as a singles yarn doesn't have the crisp stitch definition that I normally like for cables, so I decided to reknit them in a multiply semisolid yarn. I've had two skeins of Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock in my stash for ages and ages (so long that it was from back when you had to buy two skeins to knit a pair of socks), and they seemed perfectly suited. I cast on before we got on the plane, and I've just finished the gusset on the first sock.

On Thursday, we're planning to drive over to the east coast of Florida to visit some family, which means close to five hours in the car round trip, and these will be coming with me.

Meanwhile, we went to the movies yesterday, and I didn't think either of these projects would be suitable for knitting in the dark, so I had to cast on a new project. I brought two skeins of Felici with me to make Rainbow a new pair anyway, and she has decided she'd like another pair of Vanilla Is the New Black. That worked perfectly for movie theater knitting -- it's just a ribbed cuff and stockinette until I get to the heel.

I haven't measured this, but I think it's around three inches, so nearly half the leg done. I won't be touching these until the other projects are done, but I don't think Rainbow's in any hurry for them at the moment anyway, given that I don't think she's worn socks since the first day we arrived.

Almost But Not Quite

It feels a bit weird to be posting a spinning post while I'm on vacation thousands of miles away from all my spinning stuff, but it is Sunday (right? I'm having a hard time keeping track), and on Sundays, we talk spinning on this blog.

I did manage to finish up my giant skein of Fibernymph Dye Works fiber minis before we left, though I'm not entirely pleased with it. Here's what it looked like fresh off the wheel:

I could tell right away that it was likely underplied for my taste, but without much time left before we left, there was little I could do. So I plopped it into the tub for its soak, let it drip dry for a couple of hours, and then left it on the radiator overnight. Here's what it looked like the morning we left (please excuse the poor photo -- we were up and off to the airport before the sun rose):

While it poofed up nicely in the wash, there's just not enough plying twist for my taste, so when we get back, I'll be running it back through the wheel to add a bit more. That said, I am pleased with the combination of all the minis and I'm looking forward to knitting up this crazy skein! 

Decisions Made

It's now the evening before we're due to leave for our trip, and I'm happy to say that I made up my mind about what to take with me.

The last-minute add-on is the bright Gale's Art sock blank you see on the left; that was one of my Rhinebeck acquisitions, and I've been itching to use it. I'm also taking two skeins of Knit Picks Felici that will become another pair of socks for Rainbow (the pink/purple/yellow skeins at the top), the green Knit Picks Stroll Tonal and the blue Baby Ull will become a Whippersnapper that is a baby gift, the two skeins of gray Lorna's Laces on the right will become a new sample pair of my Intrecciate Socks, and the gray and pale blue in the middle are Fibernymph Dye Works Traveler for a new design. I'm fairly confident this will be enough and that I won't get through it all, but just in case I do, I've discovered a yarn store that's about 20 minutes away from where we'll be staying, so I can always make an emergency trip if I need to.

Meanwhile, I finished my socks with the new heel last night. Rainbow helped me out with a little photo shoot today, and the draft of the pattern is all written up, so I'll be putting the pattern together this weekend and sending it off to my tech editor for after Christmas.

For those of you wondering about the shawl, I'm happy to tell you that it looks like it will be finished tonight. As of this moment, I have six rows and a bind off left to do. Ideally, I'd like to finish in time to block it tonight as well, but I'm not sure that will happen. Blocking can always wait until we get back, anyway. The important thing is finishing!

I'm Almost Out of Time

It was a busy weekend here, busier than I expected, so I am not as far along on my shawl as I had hoped to be -- and that means I'll be knitting on it every moment I can until it's done or we leave for our trip, whichever comes first. Technically, I could always take it on the trip with me, but as close as I am to finishing, I'd rather not take the extra weight only to finish it the first day I'm away. The good news is that I have made it to the border and the final chart, and just 20 rows and a bind off lie between me and a finished project. I will be working on it the next two evenings and also as much as I need to during the day on Thursday; it's the last day of work at my office, but Rainbow has a half day for her last day of school, so I'm taking the day off. The complication is that I also want to finish plying up the handspun skein that's currently in progress and have time for it to be washed and dried so I can snap a picture before we leave.

The other WIP on my needles is my Felici socks, and I feel pretty confident that those will get done. I'm on the foot of the second sock, so that means I don't need to pay much attention and can knit mindlessly on them whenever I want, including in the dark while I'm waiting for Rainbow to fall asleep.

I'm still debating exactly how much yarn to take with me on vacation. I know there are a couple of projects that need to get done (a baby gift is at the top of the list) and I can likely knock out a pair of socks or two, but there's always that fear that I'll run out of projects before I run out of vacation. There's always reading to do, but I despise sitting with nothing to do with my hands, so it may be a case where I toss in an extra skein of sock yarn at the last minute. I suppose that if worse comes to worst, I can find a Michaels and pick up some kitchen cotton to knit some dishcloths! But I'll make a final decision and show you what I'm taking the next time I post.

Massive Skein Ahead

WARNING: This post contains spoilers! If you have the Fibernymph Dye Works Holiday Countdown fiber minis set and don't want to see colors that are ahead, read no further!

I had high hopes for my spinning this weekend. I was really hoping to finish spinning all of my fiber minis singles and then ply everything, but the last couple of days turned out to be busier than I anticipated (case in point: I am typing this after 8 p.m. on Sunday, eating a late dinner because Rainbow and I went to see The Nutcracker late this afternoon and didn't get home until nearly 7). The good news is that I did finish the first part of the goal, even though I had to stay up a little late on Friday night to get the last singles done. Here they are, on two bobbins because they would not fit all on one standard bobbin:

The Lendrum bobbin on top has the last five minis, I believe, and I did end up getting all of those singles plied and get a brief start on the singles on the Akerworks bobbin yesterday evening before I had to stop so we could get to a party on time. Here's what my plying looks like so far:

I'm plying on the miniSpinner because I knew there was no way I would be able to fit the full skein on a Lendrum bobbin; I've been weighing each mini as I opened it, and when I added up the total weight, I found I had 190 grams -- that's 6.7 ounces -- of fiber spun. I'm sure it will poof up significantly once I wash it to set the twist, but right now it's plying up a fairly consistent fingering weight. Come hell or high water, this skein will be finished before we leave for our vacation!

Meanwhile, my latest shipment from the Southern Cross Fibre club showed up this week, after sitting in New York for several days (I guess it was sightseeing?). This is Caravaggio on Corriedale, which should make some lovely socks.

I'm still trying to decide if I should take a spindle and some fiber on vacation; on the one hand, it's harder to do outside in the humidity, but on the other, there is air conditioning, and having only one project would help me to focus and maybe help use up some fiber stash. Why is it that the craft packing is always the hardest packing?

It'll Be a Nail-biter

I have a feeling I'll be knitting like a crazy person to finish my shawl before we go away. It's partially my own fault, as I've been spending about half of my nightly crafting time working on spinning up what's left of my holiday minis, but I think I really need to buckle down and focus if I want to finish this in the next week. I'm now just five or six rows away from finishing the final repeat of the main lace chart and then there are two more to go.

The colors here are, again, a bit darker than in real life thanks to limited light. I was hoping for a little more natural light this morning because we got snow last night, but it's so hard this time of year. In any case, you can see that it's getting a bit big more the needles, so things are moving in the right direction. Here's a little preview of what this stitch pattern will look like when it's blocked (though I'll be stretching it quite a bit more):

In the meantime, remember the socks I was knitting for myself? Somehow I'm already halfway done with them. The first sock is done but for grafting the toe (somehow I didn't have needles in my project bag) and the second has been cast on.

I got such a response to this heel on Instagram that I've already written up a draft of the pattern. I'll be reviewing it while I knit up the second sock and then getting it to my tech editor. I wasn't planning on doing much design work this month, but sometimes I guess it creeps up on you!

Tomorrow, if you can believe it, is Rainbow's eighth birthday. We are planning a fairly low-key celebration with family tomorrow evening (she had her kids birthday party last weekend), and then we are going to see The Nutcracker downtown on Sunday afternoon. We've also got another holiday party to go to on Saturday night, and I'm scheduled to podcast with Anna Saturday morning, so it looks to be another busy weekend. But we're down to single digits in the number of days before we leave for our vacation, and I can't wait! Just need to figure out what knitting to pack.