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.

A First Attempt at Dyeing

Yes, I know that I tried the Kool Aid stuff a while back, but this is the real, multi-colored deal. I used 5 colors in total and dyed the two bare skeins (one fingering weight, one worted weight) that I recently ordered from KnitPicks. It actually was not that challenging and the results are amazing!

The five colors I used were: purple, dark blue, light blue, yellow, and teal.

I poured the dye over wet wool to get the color scheme I wanted.

The sock yarn goes into the oven for 30 minutes at 250 degrees.

The 'cooked' yarn looks similar to before.

The resulting skeins are gorgeous!

We'll see how the two yarns knit up, especially with the repeating colors in the sock yarn (right, above).

And speaking of socks, one of Andy's socks is finished and I am well on my way into the second. I might just have them finished before his birthday!

I Just Finished Some More Yarn!

Normally, I would be in be at this time of the night, but since I have nothing better to do on Sunday at 11pm, I did some more spinning. At the latest count, I am up to three (yes, the number 3) balls of handspun. I don't have a lot of roving at this point in time, so each is only 30-50 yards. I plan to aquire more roving soon, but only after I knit some of this yarn that I have recently purchased.

Anyway, the balls of yarn are shown below. From the left: the two ply shown in a recent post, the single ply blend of magenta and purple (still a little too twisty), and a double ply thick/thin combo with two shades of purple. I'm very happy with each of them and I can't wait to knit with them soon!



I'm still working on Andy's socks, but I broke down and told him what I'm doing. It makes getting his measurements much easier. That, and he finally lets me knit in his presence. Apparently he needs ALL of my attention when we're together, unless I am making him something. Silly boys.


Sock #1 is almost done (except for the heel, of course).

It's Finally Fall, Bring On The Knitwear!

Lots of things going on this week in my world of fiber. In conjunction with the room cleaning, I frogged a couple of UFOs (unfinished objects) that were taking up space in my closet. One was a two-side argyle scarf that I was 4" into, and the other was a few panels that were going to be a purse. It was made out of stash yarn and ugly anyway, so I'm glad it's gone. Nothing like a little Spring (I mean Fall) cleaning to remind you about all of the yarn you have!

And speaking of lots of yarn, I recieved all of the sock yarn I ordered by the begining of this week. The three skeins are each absolutely gorgeous! I have already cast-on Andy's socks and am trying to devise sneaky ways to get his foot measurements. BTW, did you know that your forearm is almost the exact same length as your foot? I've decided on a 'waffle' pattern for the socks (k 2 rows, *k2,p2* 2 rows, repeat) which I think will be nice and manly enough for him (although, my grandmother's first knitting project was a pair of argyle socks for my grandfather). As for the other two sock yarns, I was thinking about knitting the green yarn as Jaywalkers and the red yarn as the Snicket Socks. One project at a time Kristin...



Even though I am getting to knitting all of my new yarn, I am still partaking in some stash enhancement, but not in the way you might think. During my parent's visit last weekend, my mother brought me my drop spindle and some roving, which she gave me a few years ago, though it had mysteriously made its way into her stash in the meantime. After remembering how to spin, I was able to whip up some really nice two-ply yarn after only a night's worth of spinning. It's not very even (but heck, 'art yarn' is cool too!), but it will make a nice small project. I'm going to try to spin up the rest of the roving I have, then maybe order a hand-dyed colorway or commercially dyed roving to make a larger project. Again, one project at a time...


And finally, I'm excited to announce that it is cold today. I almost grabbed a scarf on my way out the door. Bring on sweater season!

Less Buying, More Knitting!

First, here are the pictures of my crochet scarf, described in the last post (which I guess was just yesterday, I must be getting blog-happy).


Yay for finished projects!

Second, my credit card is feeling some heat from more yarn purchases. I decided that I never use birthday money on exciting things, so this year, I bought sock yarn! I bought a skein of the Fred Flinstone colorway of Socks That Rock, though I am still debating if I should have bought the Seal Rock colorway. Maybe I'll try to dye my bare Merino in similar colors (if I have time for that).

But Oh! the purchasing does not stop there. I ordered two handpainted skeins from Spunky Eclectic ; a skein of Green Gables for me and a skein of Soylent to make socks for Andy. I hope that the two colorways aren't sold out, so we'll see if I actually get those skeins (crossing my fingers). Sigh. Will someone please hide my credit card, because the birthday money is now gone...