1 Step Forward and 2 Steps Back

I've been much too busy buying yarns and books and fiber and tools to remember I hadn't posted this yet. I went to Stitches West last weekend and promptly caught a cold so I haven't any pics of the immense haul from that trip to show. Next time.

And really, all I've accomplished in the almost last month is stash enhancement. Not just at Stitches. I've started a couple of additional projects and have ripped the Here There Be Dragons socks back and ordered yet more sock yarn in an attempt to find a good match up between color and pattern. The first yarn I had chosen was much too wild a yarn for the stitch pattern to show up. I might try Grumperina's Jaywalker socks in that yarn to see if it might work better. I've gotten the two mail order options and also picked up two other possibilities at Stitches for the HTBD sox. I love that sock pattern, so making four pairs seems perfectly reasonable to me at the moment. I love the stitch pattern, although I did decide that alternating left and right leaning Make Ones looked cleaner (in my knitting anyway), than just using the left leaning one which seems to be the instruction.

It also took me almost an hour to figure out the Twisted German Cast-On and I'd never have managed it without that link. Thanks so much Sandeleh! I love that cast on. I dunno if this is infatuation or the real thing but I'm all about the twisted right now. It's pretty, and stretchy and man does it look cool and complicated while you do it. I love it when knitting looks harder than it is.

I also still haven't managed to start spinning up the yarn for the poncho so that's gonna end up for next winter for sure.

And while I now have the tapestry loom I need for a small weaving project I'm still working out exactly how to accomplish what I envision. I need to find some sort of pixilating tool or something I think.

Stitches West report next time, this is already too long and I haven't even gotten to the FO yet.

I did manage at last to send off SIL's extremely late birthday package so can now post a pic of her scarf. Modelled by our latest addition to the family, the scarf is Stitch Diva Studios' Curlicue Ruffle Scarf done in Kidsilk Haze, Collinette Zanziba and Rowan err-um-something glittery.

And the colors in that pic (on my monitor anyway) are accurate for the dog (except for the Goa'uld eyes) and the rug but a bit bright for the actual scarf I think. I'll try to do better next time.

Biting Off More Than I Can Chew

If my fiber pursuits have a theme it's "biting off more than I can chew" or possibly "jumping into the deep end while still needing water wings". This can provide merriment for others. And occasionally maybe even encouragement, since I don't always end up being fished out of the pool coughing up chlorinated water.

I've been reading knitting and fiber blogs for a couple of months now and decided to start my own as a record of "what was she thinking?" for myself if no one else, and also to share the aforementioned merriment.

To clarify the size bite I take: I finished my first pair of socks last week. This week I signed up for the Blue Moon Rockin’ Sock Club. Just sounds slightly crazy right? Wait for it... I have been working on this pair (yes this exact same pair) since April of 2003. Well, ok, mostly I've been leaving them in the WIP bag/box - it isn't quite as bad as if I'd been actively knitting them for nearly 4 years. But I found them alternately difficult and boring so they waited. A lot. I should call them Lady in Waiting socks except the colors in the self-pooling yarn (it didn't really pattern) are not what springs to mind when one thinks of Ladies in Waiting. See what you think.


And I doubt they'd be done now if they hadn't been toe up and done both socks at once on two circulars which meant that when I finally lost it on the leg I could just rib for a bit and then quit. Unfortunately that means the leg is shorter than the foot and the foot is too long so I'll have to find a home for them elsewhere with someone who will love me enough to act happy to get them. Oh, and I've got, somewhere, a sock started lo these many years ago when I was in college (that's kind of a lot of years ago now - so far back into the last millennium that we weren't really worrying about the new one yet) still unfinished because I lost interest in it somewhere if I didn't rip it and send that yarn off to charity years ago.

So why then have I found myself oddly obsessed with socks and sock patterns and sock yarn for so long and to such a degree (particularly in the last few months) that I'd join a sock club? Beats me. I blame the friend who knitted me a pair of socks a couple of years ago for Christmas, thus enlightening me to how lovely it could really be to wear hand knit wool socks. And Stephanie and Wendy and all the other amazingly prolific sock knitting bloggers have to take their share of the blame as well.

I tell ya, blog peer pressure is a terrible thing...