Making Progress

First, I must say that Andy loves his socks! And coming from a boy who hates wearing socks, this makes me very happy. Now, if only he would let me take a picture of them on his feet...

Other news from the world of socks is that I am halfway through my second Jaywalker. I just turned the heel last night, and did a little work on the gusset this morning. I cannot wait to wear these socks!


I also did a little spinning this morning with the BFL from Lisa Souza in the Emerald City colorway.


Another project that saw some attention this week was my scrapbook. I ordered prints last week and have cropped and seperated them by year. If I take this a few small steps at a time, I might have my undergraduate scrapbook complete before I finish graduate school. (Now if only I could say the same for that T-shirt quilt).

I have a big exam next Saturday, so hopefully I will be able to sneak some knitting time in between the studying this week.

I Think That I've Come Down With Something...

The rule in the knitting community is to cast-on the second sock immediately after casting-off the first in order to avoid Second-Sock-Syndrome, thus having some motivation to complete the pair. I have apparently extended this rule to apply to whole pairs of socks, where a new pair must be put on the needles as soon as the previous pair has been finished. Now is about the time that I realize that I have been bitten by the Sock Bug.

It started off as knitting socks for Andy's birthday, and progressed to constantly wearing hand knit socks (only taking them off to shower). Other symptoms include: an obsession with sock yarn, a love of size 2 needles, and the ability to whip up a sock pattern from scratch. Now that I understand how socks 'work', they are all I want to make. I will someday get back to knitting other things, but right now, those 3 extra skeins of sock yarn are calling my name.

The first skein is actually being put to use on a pair of Jaywalkers. This is the hand-dyed Merino seen in a previous post. I must say that I was really excited to see the way the colors looked wrapped up in a ball and I LOVE the feel of knitting with the Merino. I am very happy with the yarn, and sock #1 is almost done!




I am also thinking of bartering hand-knit socks for something woven by my mother. (What do you think Mom ;D ?) I use the blanket she wove for me all the time, and I seem to remember her enjoying the last pair of socks I knit for her. It's great to have another fiber-loving person in the family. It makes me and my yarn stash seem a bit more normal.

That's all for now. Hopefully, the worst of the sock virus will have passed before the next post, or you may be hearing about socks for a long time...

The Socks Are Done, What Next?

It has been a busy few weeks here in Madison. School has taken over my life and I have not found enough time to post in this blog for a while. Not that there has been much knitting going on--again, being so busy and all.

However, I did manage to finish Andy's socks last week! His birthday is next week, so they are done just in time. They look really good, but we'll have to see how they fit.



Also, I learned that one of my college friends had a baby recently. I decided to whip up a baby hat to send to her. Now if I could only find her address...


On the spinning front, I purchased some more roving: some Blue-Faced Leichester and some Superwash Merino, both hand-dyed from Lisa Souza. I have spun some of the BFL (the blue/green) and really like it. Before I spin anymore, I have to decide the weight I want the final yarn to be. It might also help to come up with something to make out of all of that yarn, but I'll get there eventually.


I'm in a lull between projects now. I'm thinking about knitting Jaywalkers out of my hand-dyed yarn, or some fair-isle fingerless gloves with some yarn I bought from Knitpicks. I also cracked open the blank DG scrapbook the other day and starting putting down backgrounds. And I have lots of fleece calling my name. I can handle two projects at a time, so I have to decide which ones I want to work on the most. The winners in the next post to be sure.