Inch by Inch

I spent a lot of time spinning over the weekend, but I still gave my knitting projects some attention as well, so they are making slow but steady progress.

On Saturday morning, we went to get our taxes done. Fortunately, this isn't too painful an event for us, but it does mean a bit of a drive to the tax preparer's office and then about an hour sitting with her as she goes over all our documents. I took along my rainbow cowl to work on, as it doesn't require a pattern or much thinking. As a result of that time, plus a bit of attention on Sunday night and lunchtime knitting yesterday and today, I'm now into the blue section. There's only purple to go after that, so I'm just about at the end. If I keep up the pace, I should finish it right about the time when it officially becomes spring.

This flash-free evening photo brought to you by Daylight Savings Time 

My Zephyr, meanwhile, got some face time on Saturday afternoon during my weekly trip to my LYS. I managed to get just about back to where I was before I had to rip, and then last night I got through the two sections beyond that point. I'm now ready to split off for the sleeves, so things should get a little less complicated (and less prone to stupid errors) from this point on. I have now memorized the pattern on the front bands, so it's really just a matter of paying attention to some shaping on the body and keeping track of my rows.

I seriously doubt that I'll need to wear this sweater when it's done, but it will be nice to start the cold season next year with at least one new sweater. My plan is to cast on for my Cabletta cardigan with the Miss Babs Yowza I bought at MDSW last year when I'm done with this sweater; it very well may come with me to MDSW this year. Again, this is an instance where I certainly won't need to finish it up quickly to wear it, but it will be nice to put away and to clear that yarn out of my stash (particularly as it's been sitting in a bag in my bedroom mocking me ever since I bought it!).

Lots of Thin Singles

Over the course of the past few days, I've been doing a lot of spinning of a lot of fine singles. For starters, last night I finished up the singles for my Falkland sock yarn.

I started plying them on the miniSpinner this morning and will do more as soon as this posts. I'm hoping that I'll be able to finish the skein tonight, though I think skeining and washing will have to wait until tomorrow.

Meanwhile, my first order from the FatCatKnits Mixed Blessings club arrived earlier in the week. In this club, each shipment contains 5 oz. total of two colorways that are meant to coordinate. There's also a choice of fiber. For this shipment, I picked superwash BFL/nylon, which I thought would be perfect for socks.

The two colorways are called Long Shadows (the blue/purple) and Meadow Song (the green/orange-y gold). I thought quite a bit about how to spin them and finally decided on a traditional four ply, with two plies of each color. It seemed the easiest way to split them evenly and ensure a good blend of both colorways.

I managed to finish spinning up the first half of Meadow Song today. This will be my first time spinning a traditional four ply (the only other yarn I've spun with four plies was a cabled yarn, or two two plies plied together), so this should be a fun spin. I can't wait to see how these colors look when they're all mixed together!

Ravel and Unravel

If there's one thing I've learned from my knitting this week it's that I should not start slightly complicated sweaters when my head is foggy from a bad cold. I cast on for Zephyr on Saturday, after doing all sorts of calculations to figure out what size to make, and had nothing but trouble from the beginning. First, I misread the directions for the stitch pattern and had to frog and start over. Then I missed the line telling me to work one more row on one side of the band than the other and had to rip out because I'd picked up stitches on the wrong side of it. Here's what it looked like before knit night last night:

I show you this picture because when I pulled it out to work on it at knit night, I discovered that about 20 rows back, I'd missed an important direction about where to do certain increases and had been doing them in the wrong place all that time. So I had to rip back about half of my work and to fix that particular error.

It's actually quite a clever pattern -- perhaps too clever for my cold-addled brain at times. It's constructed using the contiguous method, which is a way of creating a set-in sleeve look with a construction that's similar to a raglan. In any case, you start with the band (not really a button band, because there are no buttons or buttonholes in it) by doing Judy's Magic Cast On for the middle of the back of the neck. You work the band for a certain number of rows in each direction, then pick up the stitches along the side. Then you begin working several kinds of increases (for the back, the V-neck, the shoulders, and the sleeves) while continuing to work the bands. That means that there's a lot to keep track of at all times, so I'm not surprised that I missed a couple of things. The pattern is also written a bit unusually to account for different directions for different sizes, so I'm making liberal use of a highlighter and a pen to make sure that I'm paying attention to the things that I need to and ignoring the things that I don't. I'm hoping my frogging and redoing is over for the time being.

When the sweater proves to be too much, I've been working on my handspun brioche cowl, which requires little to no thinking and is now starting to resemble a Jayne hat.

It's become my lunchtime project (at least until I wind some more sock yarn), because I finished Rainbow's handspun socks last night:

I know these still might look small to some of you, but I can't get over how big they are. Sometimes I miss my baby and her tiny feet -- the socks certainly used to take a lot less time to knit up! I predict that she'll be able to wear these for maybe a few weeks before they get too small, but hey, it was a good excuse to use up some leftover handspun (though there's still more of it, so I have to figure out something to use it for).

Pattern Release: Vaunder Mitts

I'm sure this happens to a lot of you, but I find I get into certain ruts (for lack of a better word) in my knitting and that there are certain features or styles that I want to do over and over again over the course of several projects. Late last fall, I was in a twisted ribbing rut. First, there was a pair of socks with twisted ribbing and lace. Apparently that was not enough for me, because as we were on our way down to Florida, I cast on for a pair of fingerless mitts. They knit up in just a few days (and trust me when I tell you that I was most definitely not knitting all day long!) and came out exactly as I wanted. And now I get to share them with you.

Meet the Vaunder Mitts.

These were designed to be transitional pieces, when you need a little more warmth on your pulse points, or for layering, like when you might need to have some fingers free to dial your phone when you pull your hand out of a mitten but don't want to expose the entire hand to the frigid air. They're worked entirely in the round from the cuff up, and you can see they feature a lot of that twisted ribbing that was so obsessing me. A pair will take you between 150 and 215 yards of fingering weight yarn, so these are great if you have, say, half a skein of sock yarn leftover from something else or a 50 g skein that's not quite enough for socks. I used Fibernymph Dye Works Bounce (a superwash merino/nylon blend) that I picked up locally in the fall; incidentally, it looks like she's having a shop update this Friday, just in case you need to be enabled.

The Vaunder Mitts come in three sizes, to fit a hand circumference of 7 (8, 9) inches/18 (20.5, 23) cm. If you like longer mitts, it's really easy to lengthen them. The thumb gusset directions are both written and charted, and while I used a semisolid yarn for my sample, I think they'd look very cool in a variegated or self-striping. One of my testers actually used a yarn with long color repeats, and her mitts look smashing.

I really enjoyed knitting these up and have needed them the past couple of weeks when it's been freezing in my office. Of course, I'm hoping I won't need these much longer, but I think I might knit up some extra pairs to give as gifts later this year!

Things to Do on a Snowy Day

Work on filling the second bobbin of singles:

Knit a squishy cowl out of handspun:

Greetings from the House of Germs

It's that time of year, I suppose. We've been pretty lucky this winter and have thus far avoided any illness other than the occasional sniffles, but this week we've been hit hard. Rainbow came down with a cold earlier this week and last night was complaining of a horrible earache. I was worried it was another ear infection, but miraculously she seemed to be fine this morning. I, on the other hand, seem to be doing my semiannual battle with the sinus plague and feel a little like death warmed over. I really would have loved to have spent the day under a blanket with my knitting and some cheesy movies on the TV, but there are too many deadlines to meet at work, so I had to make do with lots of hot tea and my space heater.

With all of this, it's no wonder that I haven't been all that productive this week. I did finish up a secret project earlier in the week (a new design, but it has to stay secret until it's ready to be released), and after that I wound that huge skein of rainbow Polwarth (by hand -- because I was too lazy to get out my winder and swift) into an equally huge ball and cast on for an infinity cowl. I had so much fun knitting the brioche section of Rainbow's Oakseed Cowl that I decided I'd just do that for mine. I think it'll look really nice with the color changes in the yarn, and I know it'll be soft and squishy. The bonus is that it's relatively mindless to knit, so it's a good project when my brain is all foggy, as it was last night.

I've also been knitting some socks for Rainbow, at her request, out of the leftover handspun from my TTL Mystery Socks. It's been quite a while since I last knit her a pair, so I retook her measurements before starting. The first sock was finished last night, and I'll say this: Her socks aren't nearly as cute as they used to be! It looks like she's inherited my big foot gene. Her feet are now 6 inches long, so it actually took me much longer than I was expecting to finish the foot.

I am planning to cast on a new sweater for myself soon, and I actually swatched over the weekend, but I've been unable to proceed due to a gauge conundrum. I swatched using US 8 needles, which is what I believe is called for in the pattern, and ended up with a fabric I really liked. Fresh off the needles, I was getting 17 stitches over 4 inches, but I was hoping that yarn would bloom a bit in the wash to the specified 16 stitches/4 inches. Unfortunately, that didn't happen. My gauge is now off by one stitch and one row, I think, over 4 inches, so I figured I'd knit a smaller size (because I think going up a needle size would result in a fabric that's too loose and holey). Here's where the problem comes in: I can't seem to figure out what the stitch count is for the bust for the different sizes in the pattern to do the requisite calculations and figure out which size to knit. This sweater is knit using the contiguous method, and the fronts are also meant to overlap a bit, so it's not as clear cut as you might think. It looks like I'll have to do some digging around on Ravelry (and probably read through the pattern completely) to see if I can work it out before I'll be able to cast on. And I'm anxious to do that, because I am constantly freezing and would really love a big, cozy new sweater right about now!

Pattern Release: Incremental Growth

I can't believe it, but I'm releasing my second pattern this month! Meet Incremental Growth, the companion shawl to Diminishing Returns:

Like the earlier shawl, Incremental Growth uses the simple, elegant textures of garter and stockinette to show off the beauty of a hand-dyed skein of yarn. For this one, I used Zen Yarn Garden Serenity 20, a luscious blend of 70% merino, 20% cashmere, and 10% nylon. The skein was almost soft enough to tempt me to just keep it in the hank and wear it as a necklace, but it's just as enjoyable knit up into this shawlette, which does double duty as a colorful accessory and a layer of warmth. The shawl is worked from the top down, starting with a garter tab (and like Diminishing Returns, I include a photo tutorial for how to do this), and uses alternating sections of stockinette and garter. As you can see, the slight variegation in the yarn really shines without a busy pattern to obscure it.

The shawl is finished with a picot bind off, and if you pin out each picot a bit, you get lovely little eyelets along the edge.

This is a great pattern if you're new to top-down shawls, and it's perfect for that special skein of yarn in your stash that's maybe just slightly too busy for a lace pattern.

There are two more shawls in the series, the second of which is done but for writing up the pattern. Eventually, all four will be available as an e-book. In the meantime, you can purchase Diminishing Returns and Incremental Growth together at a discount (and you'll still get the discount if you've already purchased the earlier pattern).

Looks Like Spring

Technically it's still winter, though we had a brief warm-up this past week (I even spotted some crocus shoots this morning!). There's more snow in the forecast, though, so for the foreseeable future, I'm going to have to think of spring by looking at my spinning.

This is Falkland from Cosy that I'm spinning into a three-ply sock yarn. It hasn't seen a whole lot of attention this past week, but I'm hoping to spin a little more this week -- if only for the colors!

Knitter's Crisis

I'm finding myself in a very odd position right now, one that's very unusual for me: I don't have any active projects on the needles.

Last night I finished a cowl for Rainbow from a pattern that I was test knitting for a friend. It was a relatively fast knit (and would have been faster had I not had to tink so much -- a situation, I think, that was likely caused by knitting with dark yarn in low light) and made a very cute accessory. I used maybe half, maybe a little more, of one skein of Berroco Vintage that I rescued from the orphans bin at my LYS.

The cowl uses several different stitch patterns and techniques, which kept it very interesting, but I think my favorite part was the brioche stitch at the top. Brioche is one of those things that I'd long wanted to try but never quite got around to until now, and I enjoyed it so much that I think I'm going to use it to turn that rainbow skein of yarn I spun recently into a big, squishy brioche infinity cowl.

Finished today was a shawl I've been working on for about a week and a half. It will look much better and a little different when it's blocked, of course, but for now it's just a blob of knitting (a sparkly blob, at that).

I call this composition "Gray Shawl on a Gray Day"

So now I'm in that very rare position where I don't have anything I'm actively working on. I do have a couple of projects in hibernation, including the baby doll that I started for Rainbow more than a year ago that she's started bugging me about lately, but I think I will remedy the situation by casting on a new project tonight. I also have a pretty significant amount of yarn leftover from my TTL Mystery Socks that I'm planning on using for some socks for Rainbow, though I have to retake some measurements before I can start those. I am getting an itch to knit another sweater for myself, too, so I think I may wind some yarn this weekend and start swatching. I have that lovely BMFA Targhee Worsted that I got for Chanukah that should knit up pretty quickly -- probably fast enough to still be able to wear the sweater before it gets warm, right?

Little Oak

Hey hey, look what's done!

Pattern: Little Oak by Alana Dakos, size 4
Yarn: Yarn Hollow Tor DK (100% superwash merino) in Moss, approximately 2.25 skeins
Needles: US 4 (3.5 mm)
Started/Completed: January 20/February 16
Mods: added an inch of length to the body, fudged the button bands just a bit

This was pure pleasure to knit. It's knit from the bottom up, so it's fairly mindless until you get to the yoke, when all the fun starts. I spent much more time knitting this on Friday and Saturday than I expected because I had gotten to the cabled row and very much want to knit just one more row.

I thoroughly enjoyed working with this yarn as well. It was new to me; my LYS has started carrying it to take the place of tosh dk, which they're no longer carrying because of supply issues. The color quality is very similar -- subtly variegated color that really creates depth -- but I actually found I enjoyed knitting with it a tad bit more. The tosh always had a slightly powdery feel to me, kind of hard to explain, but this just felt soft and smooth. After a wash, the fabric softened even more and got some pretty amazing drape given that this was knit at a fairly dense gauge (22 stitches/4 inches).

That gauge was actually my main deviation from the pattern. The gauge called for is 24 stitches over 4 inches, but I'd probably have to knit on size 2 needles to get that (despite the fact that Alana recommends size 6 needles -- she must be a really tight knitter!). I wanted the sweater to come out a bit larger than the size 4 so that Rainbow would be able to wear it longer than the rest of this winter, but the size 6 would have been humongous on her. My gauge difference, then, worked out pretty well to give me a slightly larger sweater without having to recalculate everything.

As you can see, the smaller version of the pattern looks very much like the larger one -- in fact, Rainbow was so excited that hers was done that she insisted we both wear our sweaters yesterday!

Will It Stripe?

I was hoping to have another finished skein of handspun to show you today, but in the past couple of days I've been focusing almost exclusively on Rainbow's sweater, so I've spent very little time at my wheel. I did, however, manage to finish up the third bobbin of singles just a little bit ago, so now I have all the singles done and ready to ply.

I'm really excited to see how this looks when it's plied. There are distinct sections of some bright colors (purple, pink, acid yellow/green) that I'm hoping will coincide in all three plies from time to time, giving me some striping when when yarn is knit up. Of course, I could also end up with a muddy mess. This is one of the things I love best about spinning dyed fiber -- it's almost impossible to tell what the finished yarn will look like!

I've definitely gotten back into my sock yarn spinning groove, so I think I'm going to spin up another skein with this Falkland from CosySpins (on the bottom right):

I'm starting to think that more hardy wools than merino might be better for socks. This fiber isn't superwash, either, so it might felt a bit. I'm going to do a traditional three ply again, so there should be spots of that bright pink and yellow mixed in with the green. I think they will be very cheerful socks to wear on the gloomiest days of winter (which we clearly still have plenty more of here -- it's snowing again!).

Closed Tubes

My TTL Mystery Socks are done! The last clue was released Tuesday night (though I didn't get to it until yesterday morning), and after knitting at lunch and a bit after dinner last night, I found myself with two finished socks.

I used a single color for mine, but if you look at most of the other projects, you'll see that there was meant to be a contrast color used for the picot cast on at the top of the leg and for stripes in the toe.

I'm mostly happy with these socks. The pattern is beautiful, but I think my yarn was a little on the thin side and the pattern would look a little more robust with a slightly heavier fingering. I also noticed a slight difference in size with mine, and I think that's largely due to the fact that I worked the socks on different needles -- one sock on a pair of Addi Sock Rockets and one on a pair of ChiaoGoo Red Lace. I did this mostly because I wanted to knit both socks at the same time (and I really didn't want to do them both on the same needle or on two circs). My preference would have been to use two needles of the same type, but that really wasn't an option. I don't think the difference is really all that noticeable, and I'm sure that as I wear the socks and stretch them out a bit it'll all even out, but it's something to take note of and avoid in the future.

These socks did make it clear to me that the Sock Rockets are now my favorite needles for socks. I'd been enjoying the CGs up until I got these, but now the cord feels so inflexible in comparison.

Speaking of tubes, I pulled out Rainbow's Little Oak cardigan shortly after posting on Tuesday night and was able to complete the body to the underarms and join the sleeves to it. I've done exactly one row of the cable chart for the yoke, but I'm hoping to get through a bit more of it tonight. I'm in the home stretch at this point, especially as the rows start to get shorter soon. I have a three-day weekend coming up (Rainbow's school has an in-service day on Monday), so I'm hoping that I can finish this sweater up before I go back to work on Tuesday.

Toes to Come

I spent a good portion of my weekend working on my TTL Mystery Socks, as the fourth clue -- the foot -- was released last Wednesday. This was definitely the largest clue of the whole sock; the instep chart had 62 rounds, and I had to tack an additional 15 rounds onto the end to make the feel long enough. The clue started just after the heel turn, too, so I had the whole gusset to deal with at the beginning. It took me several hours over several days, but they are now done but for the toes.

These look a lot better when they're actually worn and the fabric stretches just a bit, but I really like them. They still feel a little delicate to me -- both because of the thinness of the yarn and the lace of the stitch pattern -- so these aren't socks that are going to be worn every week on a regular basis. I might knit the pattern again (eventually) using a thicker sock yarn if I feel like I want to wear them more often, but there's also something to be said for having special occasion socks, especially considering how the yarn was spun.

It looks like I will have plenty of yarn leftover from these socks to knit a small pair, which should make a certain 4-year-old happy.

In other projects-that-don't-even-merit-an-in-progress-post news, I knit a dishcloth last week. I'd bought a brightly colored skein of dishcloth cotton at Michaels months ago and pulled it out when I suddenly got an urge to knit a square. I grabbed the nearest free needles that weren't in a case (which happened to be a US 6) and cast on -- remind me never to do that again. I think the needles were too small for the yarn, and combined with the stiffness of cotton, it made for a tough time on my hands.

I'm not so much a fan of this yarn, either, because it rubbed off on my hands the whole time I was working with it. Still, the dishcloth is bright and cheerful (for now, anyway; I'm sure it'll fade significantly the first time it's washed), and there's enough leftover to make a small washcloth for Rainbow.

The Polwarth Poof

Remember how I was anticipating that my rainbow skein of Polwarth was going to poof up in the wash? It did indeed, though I didn't really expect how much it would poof.

To measure how much yardage I have, I first count the number of wraps around my 2 yd. niddy noddy and make a note of it. For this particular skein, I got exactly 300 wraps. I always assume there's going to be a bit less than twice the number of wraps, because I do wrap under a bit of tension, but I frequently find that my yarns shrink up even more once they're washed, as the moisture allows the memory and the spring to come back into the fibers. This is even more pronounced with fine wools like merino, Targhee, and Polwarth, and usually with those wools the skein not only shrinks up in length, but the yarn itself plumps up considerably. The rainbow yarn was light fingering fresh off the wheel, but after a wash, it plumped up to sport verging on DK in some areas.

To measure my final yardage, I measured the length of the open skein, multiplied that number by two (for the full length around the skein), and multiplied that number by the number of wraps around the niddy noddy. Finally, I divided that big number by 36 to get the total number of yards. If I'd calculated my yardage simply by multiplying the number of wraps on my niddy noddy by two, I'd have gotten 600 yards. However, taking into account the poof and the resulting shrinkage, I ended up with approximately 433 yards -- that's a pretty significant difference.

My one little complaint about this yarn is that the red bled a bit into some of the other colors when I washed it, which you can see if you look closely in this picture:

I'm hoping the bleeding won't bee too apparent when this yarn is actually knit up (into what, I just don't know yet, though I'm thinking some kind of big, poofy cowl). I joked on Ravelry that I'm tempted to just wear this bright skein around my neck and call it a day.

I so enjoyed the boost I got from these bright colors that I picked another colorful bundle of fiber (part of my last order from Crown Mountain Farms) for my next spin. I'm spinning a three-ply fingering weight, my default yarn, on my Lendrum, and I'm nearly halfway done with the singles. This is the second bobbin.

The color repeats on the fiber are very short, as you can see, and there are quite a lot of colors, so it'll be really interesting to see how this yarn looks when plied. I really can't wait to see if I end up with the same variation in color or if it all mixes so much that the colors cancel each other out and I end up with a neutral, so I anticipate a fair amount of spinning this week.

How Many Days Until Spring?

I want to begin this post by stating that I am officially done with winter. Yesterday another storm moved through and dumped every kind of possible precipitation on us -- snow, sleet, freezing rain, regular rain. Rainbow had a two-hour delay at school and I had to take her in, so that meant I was late for work and got there pretty much soaked after trudging through all the slush. That put me in a bad mood for pretty much the whole day. I also skipped knit night last night after sliding on black ice several times on the trip home, so that bummed me out even more. But the sun was out today, and we have at least a couple of days when we're not supposed to see any more snow, so I'm trying to be more cheerful.

The delay yesterday morning meant that I got to make a special breakfast (chocolate chip pancakes, which I'd promised Rainbow I'd make if there was a school delay or cancellation) and get in a little bit of extra knitting time. That, combined with an hour or so last night, meant that I actually finished Rainbow's handspun scarf!

Pattern: Orwell Bridge Scarf by Alison Hawke
Yarn: my handspun, BFL from Gale's Art in Deep Blue Sea
Needles: US 3 (3.25 mm) Knit Picks circs, magic loop
Started/Completed: January 25/February 5
Mods: several; see below

I picked this pattern because I wanted something small that would fit just around Rainbow's neck and not be a strangulation hazard, and the keyhole feature seemed ideal. There are quite a few patterns like this on Ravelry, but I wanted something plain (and the likelihood that the finished object might be rejected after it was done was high, so I went for a free pattern so that I wasn't out both time and money).

I made a number of modifications. First, I started by casting on one more stitch than specified, because you increase to an even number and I wanted to start with an even number so I'd have the same number of increases on both sides. I also used the same size needles throughout, as my yarn was a bit lighter than what was called for in the pattern. When I got to the far end of the scarf, I also kept the ribbing as a tube, rather than making another keyhole, because I really thought the one keyhole was plenty. I haven't weighed the leftovers, but it looks like I used roughly half of the yarn, and I really love the gentle color changes I got.

I'm hesitant to say anything bad about a pattern because I know how hard it is to write a good one, but I will say that I found this one a little hard to follow. I wouldn't recommend it for a beginner, because there's quite a bit you need to intuit. If you have some experience, it won't be terribly difficult for you, but it's not a pattern where every single step is spelled out for you. I do like the finished product a lot, as does Rainbow, so it's a success. I might even make one for me, though I'd make some additional modifications (like I'd skip the purl stitches in the main tube).

Still on the needles are Rainbow's Little Oak cardigan (I'm a little more than halfway done with the body) and my TTL Mystery Socks, which are slowly progressing through the foot. I'm resisting the urge, for now, to start a sweater for me. I've suddenly found that I'm a little bored with my sweater selection and have sweater quantities of yarn for at least three sweaters, but I'm trying to get through these things first. Maybe I will cast on one next month and make it my birthday gift to myself!

Pattern Release: Diminishing Returns

Early last fall, I had an idea for a shawl that was simple to execute and used basic textures (stockinette and garter) to show off hand-dyed yarn. I love using hand-dyed yarn, but sometimes, even with a semisolid colorway, the color changes in the yarn partially obscure a stitch pattern, especially a complex one. The idea was to create a basic top-down triangular shawl that would allow the yarn to be the star. I acquired two skeins of Malabrigo Sock and cast on in conjunction with the Malabrigo Junkies Ravelry group's annual Stockpile event to see if I could turn an image in my head into an accurate physical representation. I'm happy to say that I could and I did.

The finished shawl, Diminishing Returns, is your basic top-down triangle shawl, but the mixture of stockinette and garter adds visual interest to the basic shape. This is a fairly large shawl, so you can really wrap up in it on a cold day or bunch it up around your neck to keep the wind out. Because I was working with two skeins of hand-dyed yarn, I alternated which skein was I working from every two rows to avoid pooling. The design also lends itself very well to being worked in two colors if you don't happen to have two skeins of the same color -- you should go see Brian's version to see what I mean.

If you've never knit a top-down triangle shawl before, this would be a great one to start with. There are very few stitches used (knit, purl, and make 1 right/left), and I've even included a photo tutorial to help you with the garter tab that starts the shawl.

Eventually, this shawl will be part of an e-book featuring four relatively simple shawls; the other three patterns will, I hope, be coming out in the next several months. The shawl is available on its own for now, though, and I hope you'll like it!

All the Colors of the Rainbow

As I had hoped, I managed to finish spinning up the third and final bobbin of my rainbow fiber on Friday night, which meant that last night when I sat down to spin, it was time for a marathon plying session. (Luckily I had my miniSpinner at the ready, so at least most of the work was done for me.) I didn't finish up until after 11, which is rather late for me, so I saved skeining and washing for this morning. Alas, it's a dark, damp day here and the skein is still drying, so you'll have to make do with a couple of prewash shots.

First, here's the whole thing on the bobbin -- a sight that makes me very glad that I have these enormous WooLee Winder bobbins:

And here it is skeined up on my niddy noddy:

It really did turn out exactly as I was hoping -- there just a bit of overlap from one color to the next, but I finished with just a little bit of singles on two bobbins when the first ran out, so I split my colors pretty well and spun them fairly consistently.

I won't know exactly how much yardage I ended up with until the skein is fully dry and I can measure it, but I had 300 wraps on my niddy noddy, so even accounting for shrinkage, I'm hopeful I'll have somewhere in the 500 yard range. This is Polwarth, so it should fluff up a bit from the wash, but it looks to be fingering weight.

After all that color, I was craving some more, so I pulled out this Crown Mountain Farms superwash merino (from my very last CMF order) and am spinning up some three-ply sock yarn.

I have caught the spinning bug once again, so I wouldn't be surprised if you see this as yarn in another week or two!

Newfound Focus

It appears that all I needed to be able to concentrate on one project was to blog about how I couldn't focus. After my last post, I devoted myself almost entirely to my blue shawl, which is now thisclose to being finished. The bind off is one that takes quite a long time, though I think it's worth it. I'll finish this up first thing this evening.

I think I mentioned that there's a little bit of colorwork on the border of this one, and I'm finding that I like the reverse side of it just as much as I like the front, so I think I might be using this stitch pattern again for something that could be reversible.

As soon as the shawl is done, it'll get blocked. Then all I need to do is take some measurements, weigh what's left of my yarn to figure out how much I used, and take some photos to put the finishing touches on the pattern.

Yesterday the third clue of the TTL Mystery Socks was released (well, technically it was released Tuesday night, but I didn't look at it until yesterday morning). I took my socks to work and was able to get the first heel done and the second heel started. The second heel was finished last night, so these will now be put aside until next week, when we'll get the foot portion.

I had a brief moment of panic after I finished turning the second heel last night when I thought for a minute that I'd have no lunchtime knitting for today (I have a couple of things I want to start, but yarn needs to be wound for them). Then I remembered that I've been neglecting Rainbow's scarf, so that went into my project bag and saw some action today. I think that if I can stay focused on it for a few days at least, it stands a good chance of getting finished in the near future.

For a while there I was starting to think that I had too many projects on the needles, but it turns out that I needn't have worried! I love it when it all works out like that.

Scatterbrained

It must be this cold weather that's doing it to me, but I can't seem to stay focused on any one project lately, and as a result, nothing seems to be moving. I mentioned the other day that I'd started a scarf for Rainbow, but it's been pretty much untouched since then (though I really should get a move on so it will actually be useful for her).

The past two nights, I've worked on Rainbow's sweater, which now has a couple of sleeves and the beginnings of the body (not pictured, because it's just a few rows of ribbing at the moment).

I've also been putting in a row here and a row there on that blue shawl I've been knitting, which has finally gotten to the point where I can add in the second color. But that's been my lunchtime knitting and will probably get put on hold once I get the next clue for the mystery socks.

As if all these WIPs weren't enough, I'm getting a really strong urge to cast on for a new hat for me, mostly because the Koolhaas I've been wearing doesn't seem to actually want to stay on my head anymore. I'd really like to knit myself a Wurm using a skein of my handspun.

Oh, and spinning! Now I want to spin all the time! If only I could stay home and be surrounded by yarn and fiber all day -- I could get a lot more done! Perhaps when I retire I'll be able to do it, but that's a long way off.

2/3

After barely touching my wheel all week, I gave it some good attention this weekend and have a second bobbin of rainbow colors to show for it.

I also started in on the third bobbin and have broken into the second color, so I'm well on my way to finishing that. I'm hoping to spin at least two evenings this week so that I can ply next weekend.

One of my goals for the year was to knit more with my handspun, and I'm happy to say that the project I cast on for yesterday is just that.

It's not much, but it's a start of Rainbow's scarf. The fiddly parts are done (at least until I get to the other end), so now it's pretty much mindless knitting in the round. The yarn is really soft and fuzzy, and I'm really hoping I don't spend all this time only to have her tell me that it's scratchy!

Gimme All the Wool

That darn Polar Vortex seems to have struck again, so I am finding that I want to cover myself in every handknit object I own. Even Rainbow -- who I often refer to as "my little furnace" -- has requested that I make her a scarf. I think I've found a suitable pattern (I wanted something short to avoid any strangulation risk), and she has picked out a skein of my handspun, so I'm hoping to cast on this weekend and whip it up quickly so she can wear it while the frigid air is here.

Meanwhile, I'm working on more handknits for me. The second clue for the TTL Mystery Sock was released a day early, and I had planned to start in on it during my lunch break yesterday, but apparently it's cold enough to freeze my brain and I forgot to swap out my project bags. That meant that I didn't get to start in on them until after Rainbow was asleep last night. I've nearly gotten through the leg on the first sock and will tackle the second one tonight.

Daylight photo brought to you by my camera phone!

These are pretty darn fancy, and I'm glad I'm using some of my extra-precious handspun for them. The yarn itself feels a little delicate, as does the patterning, so these will be special socks that don't get worn every day.

I'm also still working on Rainbow's sweater, which now has a completed sleeve and the cuff of the second done. I am still loving the yarn and am now lusting after more for a sweater for me. (I'm sticking to my stash "diet," though, and am fully intending to knit the sweaters I've already bought yarn for before that happens!)

Start of a Smaller Version

Yesterday we all had the day off, so I took the opportunity to start a sweater for Rainbow. I'd long had Little Oak in my favorites, so when I heard that the Knitmore Girls were doing a "matchy matchy" knitalong, I decided that it was the right time to knit it. I'd already made myself a Gnarled Oak Cardigan in tosh dk last year, so now Rainbow and I will have (sort of) matching sweaters.

I didn't have any appropriate yarn in my stash already, so I allowed myself to go yarn shopping for this one. My LYS has stopped carrying madelinetosh yarns (mostly because of a supply issue), but they've recently brought in a new yarn that's a really excellent substitute -- Yarn Hollow Tor DK. This yarn is 100% superwash merino and has the same color quality of madelinetosh. I've only knit part of a sleeve and I already love it.

I'm following the wisdom of the last sweater I knit Rainbow and starting with the sleeves, as I find it much easier to put those stitches on holders and have the body stitches on the needles when I join for the yoke than vice versa. The first sleeve should be finished tonight and the second one started. My gauge is a tad bit off (I'm getting 22 sts/4 in. with a size 4 needle, whereas the pattern calls for 24 sts/4 in. using a size 6 -- Alana Dakos must be a loose knitter!) but I'm using that to my advantage. I'm knitting the size 4, but I really wanted to make something a little larger than that because Rainbow's already comfortably in size 5 clothes. The size 6 seemed a bit too large, but this should allow her to have a little room to grow.

One Bobbin Down

Two more to go!