Fly-By Month

Wow! I can't believe how quickly April went. Seems like it just started last week and already it's May.

OFF MY NEEDLES:

I finished adding the feet to a pair of OD (Olive Drab) socks for Socks For Soldiers. The fourteen inch legs were knit on a Circular Sock Machine by Marolyn. Team knitting the socks this way saves hand knitters like me a good deal of time and effort (and seriously - fourteen inches of ribbing is mind numbingly tedious so I really appreciate the CSM knit legs).

I also finished my second tan regulation beanie for Socks For Soldiers. Both hats, two pair of regulation socks and two pair of leisure socks were sent out to Kim early in the month.

For my next box of hats and socks for Kim I've completed a leisure hat and started a regulation hat and a pair of leisure men's socks. Here's the finished leisure hat:





I expect I'll have Bob's Socks and the May Day project finished within the first week of May, and then I'm hoping to have the Charlotte Bronte Shawl, the Owlie Socks and some more SFS hats and socks done by the end of May. I'm participating in this year's 5k Stash Dash this Summer so I'll be waiting until Stash Dash started to finish a bunch of knitting and spinning WIPs. Yay for stash busting!

Ponderings

The Tour de Fleece this year starts on July 5th, and I've been contemplating what to spin. The Knitmore Girls are doing another sweater SPAKAL (spin-along knit-along) so spinning a sweater's worth of yarn is one possibility. Another is to see just how much I can spin in three weeks, and if I go that route, will it include plying what I've spun or just spinning the singles? I also have to consider the weather. July in NYC is hot and sticky and I don't have A/C. On the really bad days I just can't spin.



ON MY NEEDLES:

A hat in leisure colors for the Socks For Soldiers group. I'm using Claudia Handpainted Yarn in the Desert Dusk color way.





I also have a couple pair of socks on the needles in various stages from just started to almost finished.



ON MY SPINDLES:

I'm about halfway through the four ounce bump of Annunaki at Tieman. The first ounce and a half has been plied (chain ply) and is sitting on Sadie, my wheel, at home. If I finish spinning my singles before I get back, I'll start plying them on my spindle, otherwise I'll just add them to what's on the wheel.

March Finishers

I've done a fair bit of fiber prep and spinning during March and also some knitting. Enough knitting that I did manage to finish a couple of projects.

OFF MY NEEDLES:

The Fleegleized Panda socks I started on Jan 3rd are finished.

They are toe-up using the stitch pattern from Hermione's Everyday Socks by Erica Lueder and Fleegle's No Flap heel. The yarn is Panda Cotton, a bamboo/cotton/nylon blend which I found to be very splitty. It was annoying enough that I don't think I'd use this yarn again. Also, I'm not into ankle socks so I had to use every scrap of yarn to get a decent size sock leg. I did like the heel pattern and would use it again.

I finished my first regulation cap of the year for the Socks For Soldiers group. It was started on February 28th and finished on March 22nd, using tan Regia 4ply yarn (color is off in the picture).

FUBAR fix

ON MY SPINDLES:

Unspinning the horrendously overplied 2x2 cabled Rambouillet Montedale cross yarn using my Navajo spindle is working. It's a little tedious because I have to go slow and watch for the yarn to pop back into the cable, but it works. This is the first skein I got from that tangled mess. It's about 72 yards worth and the wpi is 8. The yarn is quite soft, and I'm quite pleased how it's turning out despite the mess-up.

Balancing Act

Until this past week, I hadn't touched my spinning in ages - at least since early January. Mostly, I'm just knitting. A lot. But last weekend my hands finally said enough, no more knitting straight for hours at a time. So I'm back to alternating - knit for a bit, spin for a while, knit for a while, comb/card fleece for a bit, etc.

ON MY NEEDLES:
The first of the Fleeglized Panda socks is done and the second sock started.


The Charlotte Bronte Shawl has seen some more progress, finally. I finished the first lace border with the beads. The second lace border is about three quarters done. I'm knitting it separately (so I don't have to lug the whole shawl around) and will sew it on the shawl. I chose not to put beads on the second lace border.

I'm up to the heel gusset on the second of Bob's socks. The toe shaping's a bit tricky, but otherwise they're coming along nicely.

The OD (Olive Drab) socks are also progressing nicely, as is the tan regulation cap. Both are for the a socks For Soldiers group.

And if that's not enough WIPs to work on, I cast on stranded colorwork socks and a sweater.


ON MY SPINDLES/WHEEL:

There are a number of open spinning projects on my Spindles and Wheel, but the three main projects are:

(1) During the Fall and into early December I worked on the Rambouillet/Montedale cross pre-washed fleece I purchased several years ago.  I hand combed the fleece then wheel spun it in a smoothed, attenuated long draw. This will be a 4ply cabled yarn (spun z, 2ply s, cabled z).

The spinning is finished. And I am more than halfway through plying the 2ply yarn.  In fact in early December I took the first bobbin of 2ply yarn and plied it back on itself for my first skein of cabled yarn. 

Unfortunately, I was distracted and in a hurry and made a total hash of it. To say it is overplied is a major understatement.  I gave it a nice hot bath and thwacked the ever-loving shit out of it but it's still a mess.  See:



This is a really nice yarn, very soft, so there's no way I'm chucking it.  I will have to untangle it (I messed up the skein ties too) and run it through again to take out some of the excess twist. I haven't done this before, so I think I will use my Navajo Spindle instead of my wheel - better control.

(2) I recently started spindle spinning (longdraw) some Oxford/Border Leicester crossbreed fleece that I prepped in November.  This fleece was hand combed then run through my drum carder. It turned into rather nice batts and spins easily.

(3) Also started spinning the second Annunaki at Tieman colorway bump I bought last year from Crown Mountain Farms in their going out of business sales. It is four ounces of BFL top which I am spindle spinning (worsted) and will chain ply.  

Fleece prep-wise, I'm sampling (combing, carding 2&3plying) a multicolored Perendale fleece, some black & white Jacob fleece, and some llama fleece.


Brought To Me By: Crafting accomplished with the following audio/video accompaniment:
  Audiobooks: Outlander by Diana Gabaldon;                      
  DVDs etc:   Rizzoli & Isles; Murder She Wrote; Veronica Mars;              
  Pod/VideoCasts:  The Knit Girllls; Round the Twist;  The Knitmore Girls; Two Tangled Skeins;                        
 

Casting Off

OFF MY NEEDLES:

I finished my first pair of socks this year, and had my first Ooops! moment at the same time. These socks were Cast On on January first for The Great Hufflepuff Sock Fest. I finished knitting them on January eighteenth, wove in my ends, tried them on, and this is what I got:



That was a first for me - never had a heel come out with that much excess fabric before. So I ripped back both heels about an inch and did decreases as if it was a hat crown. For one sock I kitchenered the remaining stitches closed. For the other sock I drew the yarn through the remaining stitches and cinched it closed. I prefer the look of the latter closure (top sock in the picture).

Here are the finished and fixed socks, knit on 2.25mm needles in the Monsieur X colorway of Biscotti & Cie's Felix base sock yarn.








Brought To Me By: Crafting accomplished with the following audio/video accompaniment:    
  Audiobooks: Soulless by Gail Carriger;                      
  DVDs etc:   Rizzoli & Isles; Inspector Alleyn Mysteries; Endeavor; Moonlight;            
Pod/VideoCasts:  The Knit Girllls; Round the Twist;  The Knitmore Girls (almost caught up);                    
 

And We're Off....

To a good start for the new year. New projects were started, old ones finished, and decisions made for direction a new year of crafting will go.

ON MY NEEDLES:

January first was the start of a month long sock knit-along in Hufflepuff House in the Hogwarts at Ravelry group (yes, I'm a Hufflepuff and proud of it!). There are no prizes for participating in The Great Hufflepuff Sock Fest, just Badges and a feeling of accomplishment, both of which I love.

I cast on two pair of socks. The first pair is a cuff down afterthought/forethought heel sock in Biscotti & Cie's self striping Felix base yarn in the Monsieur X colorway. I've the first sock (minus the heel) done and am almost halfway through the leg of the second sock since this picture was taken.



The second pair was cast on, frogged and re-cast on. It will be toe-up socks with Fleegle's no flap heel (a first time for me) pattern, and will incorporate the Hermione sock stitch pattern on leg and instep. The yarn is Panda Cotton, a holiday gift from a friend.




2014 GOALS:

This year I will be concentrating on charity knitting and finishing UFOs/WIPs, and also pattern writing. I will also try not to buy anymore yarn until the fourth quarter (and then only as gifts for others). Ideally, I'd like to go an entire year without any stash enhancement, yarn or fiber. For spinning, I will try to spin through as much of my fleece and fiber stash as possible, with an eye towards selling some of it (either handspun yarn or hand processed fiber). An adventure for sure.

I have lots of UFOs/WIPs on my needles that don't seem to be getting anywhere. So the plan is to concentrate on one a month (more than one if they're small like hats or socks). So far, January is a hat and a pair of socks; February will be the Hexipuff Baby Blanket; March, the Charlotte Bronte shawl. The schedule will be reevaluated every quarter as projects get added to or removed from the UFO/WIP list.

The two charities I will concentrate on are first Socks For Soldiers and then Bundles of Joy. Both have been sorely neglected over the last couple of years.


OFF MY NEEDLES:

My first Finished Object of the year is the other Holiday Stocking. I guess technically it's a Re-Finished Object since I frogged the original finished stocking back to the heel beginning and redid the heel and toe. I'm still not entirely satisfied with the toe but it looks a lot better than it did, and frankly, I'm sick of it.