Look familiar?
Scroll down to a few days ago if you need some hints…
YES! I frogged it yet again! I tried the monkey socks 4 times. I love the pattern but the yarn was just to thin for this pattern to fit MY foot. So I’m thinking next time I do monkey I’ll either use some handspun, or a thicker yarn. I’ve always got my medium weight Socks that Rock, and I’ve got some sport weight Lisa Souza that might work too. We will see.
For now, I’m making Anastasia socks.
These were finished last night but wordpress wouldn’t let me post. 
Dad’s birthday gift is completed. I really could have made the cuffs a little longer because there was still some yarn left, but it was staring to look a little funny with the super long cuffs so I just stopped.
Pattern: Wendy’s generic toe-up sock with the magic cast on from Knitty.
Yarn: KnitPicks Sock Memories in Flyfishing.
Needles: KnitPicks circulars in size 1.5
Next time Dad gets socks… I’ll put some pattern on it… I’ve just got to find a good pattern to use.
You know… It’s just going to be one of those years. My great-aunt died this morning. Third death this year on my mom’s side of the family. This one was because of an infection she got after surgery. I feel like every time I turn around someone else is passing away.
So I’ve updated A LOT lately…. anyone else noticed? I’ve gone from about once a week to almost daily…
Why the sudden change? It’s easy! I have 6 days left of my summer class. 3 this week. 3 next week. Oh.. and I have 2 BIG projects… a final to study for… plus other random journal entries I have to write.
I don’t want to do ANY of it. I am sick of school. This is supposed to be my summer break… where I sit on my butt and enjoy my fiber hobby all day. My knitting/spinning stuff has taken over my bedroom. I love seeing fiber all the time, but it’s also REALLY distracting.
OH! About middle of last week I shipped my last and final SP10 package off to Canada land… (ended up stuck at the PO for 30 minutes because I didn’t want to drive home in the massive storm that rolled through while I was there)… and apparently the package arrived today. Record time. I had included my info with the package so she knows who I am now. 
Go visit her. Kit’s Knit Spot. You know you wanna click that link…. 
Um… remember when I said I bought some roving that I never mentioned?
Well.. it was only a pound… and she has great prices… and I figured since I was placing one order, I might as well get some more to save on shipping costs and all.
In a clockwise direction starting from the top left: Fall leaves (merino 80% / tussah silk 20%), The Briny Deep (merino 50% / tencel 50%), Peachsicle (merino 80% / tussah silk 20%), Setting Sun (100% BFL). Purchased from www.dragonfibers.etsy.com, and she still has some REALLY pretty stuff left…. and the colors are much better in person then they are in the pictures this round.
This is why I had to go on a MAJOR yarn/fiber diet.
I’ve got cast on issues.
I started a mitered square the other day and it was just UGLY.. the pattern made no sense at all! Then I realized I had dropped a stitch in the very first row and that was probably why it just didn’t look right.
I was making the squares for my knitting group that I occasionally go to in Cuyahoga Falls, but I’m not sure I’m going to finish it… let alone start more.
Oh… and the fact that I’ve had a purple sock sitting without a mate since January got to me so I cast on for it’s second.
I had done the first sock for a test knit and because there were so many cables it was an at home type project, and since most of my knitting is done on the go it got put off.
It’s the lazy river socks that she sells on her site. This sock is just great… nice and snug because of all the cables. And just so you all know… when we test knit for her we don’t have to post about it at all on our blogs.. I do it becasue I like the pattern. If I didn’t like the pattern, you would never know I knitted it.
I’ve been spinning lately too. Finished up the first layer of the silk cap and I’ve been working on that Cherry Tree Hill roving that I’m going to hopefully make some lace outta. I’m dying to spin up the roving I bought from KK awhile back… and I bought more roving from KK that I haven’t shown yet.
These next 2 weeks are going to be a killer with school. I’ve been doing my homework and keeping up so the class wasn’t too bad… but I haven’t done much work on my 2 big projects yet. One is due next Monday, the other is due next Thursday. Guess what I’m going to be doing on the 4th of July… a thematic unit!
Started the monkey socks again. I finally decided to just measure my foot… measure my swatch… do the math to see how many stitches I would need to cast on to fit my foot, then adapt a pattern based on that number.
So I fiddled with the Monkey pattern a little. I added an extra stitch to each side. We’ll see how it looks when It’s a little longer.
Oh… and I’ve been wanting to dig into some silk and my new spindle, and I finally did it on Sunday night. I grabbed the silk cap that I ordered from paradise fibers last December and I’m loving silk. It was VERY hard to draft out the caps but the more I did, the better I got. It’s definitely a slow process, especially with how fine I’m spinning the yarn.
I HAVE to do it… no choice.
I will NOT buy YARN or FIBER until the GREAT LAKES FIBER SHOW…. and since that’s in May I should have the stash seriously busted by then.
My fiber truely is taking over my life. The only way this diet will be broken is if I run out of fiber or yarn. The chances of me running out of yarn? Never will happen. Chances of running out of fiber? Probably not. Since I do spin for some spare change I get a shipment every once in awhile of fiber to spin. So the chances of spinning through my personal stash is very unlikely.
Please… I beg you all… hold me to this.
ETA: So my BF, and some online friends convinced me this was completely ridiculous. I had promised my sister a b-day gift this year… and I knit little rewards for the kids I tutor. Not being able to buy yarn until next may would mean these things would have to come from stash, and I’m not about to use the nice stash on the kids I tutor. So the rules have changed. I get $10 a month and that includes taxes and shipping. If there’s something left over, it will roll over to the next month. That way I CAN buy something for myself, I’ll just have to make sure it’s something I REALLY want.
I’ve been spinning… duh. I actually spin quite obsessively.. but now I’ve actually got something that I can show on my blog. The skeins above might look familiar… I actually spun them up quite some time ago, this past week though I decided to run them back through the wheel so they had a tighter ply. I like my yarn tightly plied.
There has been some spindle spinning too. This is the first fiber I threw onto my purpleheart bosworth spindle that I got earlier in the year. I’m making sock yarn. LOVE this spindle. The bosworth spindles are just amazing! One thing I don’t love about this yarn… I plied to tightly… it looked fine when I was plying on the spindle… but its hard to tell just how tight the ply is when you’ve got the weight of the spindle pulling it down. Lesson learned… ease up a bit when plying. I’m determined to make enough for a pair of socks on this spindle just so I can have myself some spindle spun socks. It WILL be a long term project.
Oh… and I’ve been quite obsessed with the little index cards lately. Throw a single and a ply on them… and I’ve got something to compare my spinning too while I’m actually spinning. With these little cards, I get yarn that is pretty much the same all the way through.
Soooooooooooooooo… I’ve been wanting a hackle… and reading the article in the Spring issue of Spin Off finally did me in. I started searching the internet for hackles and I knew they were expensive. I had seen Cider Moon’s DIY hackle before… but I didn’t have anywhere I could hook up hair picks like that. Then I saw this bloggers post… and that was it.
I bought supplies that afternoon and the next night I had a hackle. Didn’t get a chance to actually play with the hackle though… stupid homework ruining my life. But after my class today I had some serious fun.What can I say? I’m very easily amused and love spinning/fiber toys.
This is a picture of the fiber… I layered all the colors with green on the bottom… blue in the middle… and orange on top. It makes a blendy roving with a little of each color in it when you pull it off the hackle. I also put some in blocks to make some self striping roving. There are more pictures in my flickr account if anyone is interested.
Fiber…. all pretty now.
ETA: I realize this post gets quite a few hits and it really isn’t that informative. Upon further inspection I also realized that the links had gone bad over time and so I found one of the old ones and changed it, but Cider Moon’s site is sadly down and has been down for a few months now. They had some GREAT videos of this process on their site which is why I had linked it and not put much info on my blog itselfl. I plan on searching to see if I can find some good links for you guys, and if I can’t I’ll try doing my own video thing sometime.
I have a tendancy to not post when I have content…. especially if I’ve got multiple things to talk about. I post about the coolest… and save the rest for a later date when my blog content is lacking a bit. However, I forget to post the other stuff… so I need to stop doing that.
Still working away on the green socks. My goal is to get them done before my dad’s birthday in September. I’ve got plenty of time… I just need to get them done so I can start my sister’s b-day gift. These are pretty close to being finished. Both heels are done and now I’m just knitting until the yarn runs out which isn’t too far away…my dad has some large feet. Note to self: when making socks for dad buy more than the usual amount of sock yarn… or buy artsy yarn cause she’s got some freakish yardage.
Speaking of artsy yarn… the monkey socks I was making out of her superwash merino have been frogged. They just weren’t going to fit my massive legs. Well.. they FIT… but you couldn’t see the pattern at all. So I frogged and I think I’m going to make the anastasia socks with her yarn instead. I think this pattern will be much easier to adapt than the monkey pattern.
Still working on the Knit Picks Candle Flame Shawl… This time with the correct pattern. The right pattern makes all the difference and the chart is super easy to read and memorize. I’m using the Shimmer laceweight yarn and I LOVE IT. They actually have some of the colors on sale right now if your quick. It’s a alpaca/silk blend and is quite amazing to work with. I think Knit Picks laceweight yarns are my favorite out of all their yarns… and you can’t beat the price.
I’m making a cabled dishcloth out of sugar ‘n creme yarn… it’s a pretty pattern and I love it, but cables on cotton is just not fun to knit. I do love the colors though. Something about the color brown I’m quite in love with… brown and pink… brown and blue… mmmm..
Oh… and now for one of those things I just didn’t post about…
When I got back from the fiber fest last month I had purchased a lot of silk… but I didn’t have a spindle that I could spin true laceweight yarn on… so I ordered one.
It deserves a giant picture… I have a thing for the bosworth spindles. I had bought a heavier one earlier this year and I’m still in complete love with it… but I thought a lace one would be nice for spinning up my silk. I’m not sure how my wheels will spin up silk and such so I’d prefer to do it on a spindle. Spinning silk on a spindle isn’t very scary when you’ve only got 1.5 oz total to spin. The new spindle is a featherweight spindle made from Pau Amarillo wood and weighs 13 grams or .46 ounces. It’s just lovely. Sheila from Bosworth is such a pleasure to work with and answers all my stupid questions.
