Focus on Finishing

Anyone else currently forcing themselves to focus on finishing any languishing UFOs in sight around the house? My "Sock Drawer of Shame" continues to grow, and I have two unfinished sweaters who want to be worn sooner rather than later! (Wild Apple for me-- or perhaps my mom since she won't stop asking for a Turquoise Light Bohus sweater, Patrick for my brother.)

Hopefully by the end of March I'll have a few finished FOs. To get things started, here's the first one:

Last fall I started a pair of super simple socks at the same time. They were knit with koigu purchased from the Yarnery about three years ago. I used 2 US1 (2.25mm) k.p. circs with Cookie A's fabulous and free pattern at knitty.com: Monkey. (Yes, again!) The pattern was modified by knitting the purls, and changing YOs to M1s.

...and, they were too small. The results above were frogged in December.

I ripped back to the ribbing, and changed the M1s to YOs. This minor change gave me enough stretch to pop these tubes over my high instep. In retrospect, I'm really happy that I had to rip, because I just love the pooling results:

Now, I thought these were pretty short socks. Apparently Wollmeise sock yarn has really spoiled me with 510-575 yards/skein. Koigu only has 175yds/skein - thus a total of 350 for this pair. Right as I was decreasing I ran out of yarn! After a little stash diving I found a skein of dark brown koigu just for the tips of the toes.Perhaps this is a little silly, but I love knitting socks that match your lovely, well-worn shoes:

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So, now I'm finishing another pair of koigu socks - this time from last spring!

"Happy Time"

Today we celebrated a co-workers birthday, and I ran into a slight problem with the cake that I prepped for her. The plan involved a great fat-free rainbow cake recipe from Aleta at the Omnomicon Food Blog. (It's a funny post, and a great theme cake.) I played around with the shape for a bit of a Seussian look. The candles, I thought, spelled out "Happy Birthday". When I assembled everything this morning, well... a slight improvisation was necessary:

"Time" was the best I could come up with out of "Retirement"!

February 26th is now official "Happy Time" day at work. :)

Here's a sample of what the tie-dyed cake looked like inside.

The cupcakes were all different colors.

Another co-worker wrote a "Green Cake with Icing" poem for her as well. Happy Birthday, C!

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As a quick aside, thanks to friends, family and co-workers who have treated me like a queen in the past week for my birthday. (+ random Ravelry well-wishers as well!) From the fiber folks I loved the STR, spinning & natural dyeing books, crystal & pearl earrings, and great dinners out! To my family - what a treat to spend all day on Sunday with you!

Looking for a Knitting Break?

Clara is 93 years young and is just a gem. Her recipes from the Depression era are not only thrifty, but they look mighty tasty as well. My family may not have ever been this inventive when cooking with potatoes, onions, and oil over and over again. I've embedded episode #3 instead of #1 because her reason for quitting school is quite surprising, and it's fun to see her grandson and friends dig into her just-off-the-stove meal. Enjoy!

Handspun on a Tuesday Evening

+ gratuitous dog picture

Anyone a little tired of winter? I'm certainly getting there. Today the St. Paul mercury raised to a balmy 38 degrees (F). My lunch time walk was pure bliss.

My dogs have been living in their puppy parkas in my relatively cool house, and they're ready to take them off! (Sorry, I need to snap a pic of them. It's too adorable to miss!) Above is a rare moment for Toby-- sans puppy parka.

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Honestly, I haven't quite figured out how to move pictures around in blogger on a mac. One of my favorite professors in college was a modernist who always stated that the only way to truly convey Dadaism in a lecture was to have an assistant project random Dada images for the entire conversation. So, here we go-- a post in Dada form!

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For the past two weeks I've been spinning yarn to knit Deep in the Forest Mittens by Tuulia Salmela. As soon as I saw a pic of these mittens pop up on Flickr, I quickly added it to my "must knit" list. The plan was to spin squooshy fingering two-ply yarn. The trick was that I had different fibers for each of them.

For the background (white) I selected 4 oz of "Kansas Snow" roving from Art Club at Etsy.com, a glorious alpaca/llama/merino blend. This is Nikol Lohr's store, and yes - I did but this gorgeous stuff when I attended Yarn School last fall. The singles were unbelievably soft and squooshy. November kept on pushing them down on the bobbins and saying "wow. just wow." They were soo very different from the superwash sock singles I've been spinning. When I plied it against itself, and the yarn became the absolute opposite of the single. They were plied looser than I ply sock yarns, and I'm still mystified at the final resulting yarn-- a soft, dense two-ply that almost looks like a single. It did fluff up a bit after a soak, whack and dry-- but the plied yarn is a good deal thinner than the single ply. Clearly I have more to learn about this fiber combination. I was aiming for 200 yards per 4 ounces. The Kansas Snow came out to 208 yards in length.

The foreground (brown) is 4 oz. Crown Mountain Farms' superwash merino in "Wild Horses". Oh, is this a pretty colorway! The singles were just as puffy as the Kansas Snow blend, but no where near as squooshy. Once plied, it became a thick, poofy fabulous yarn that I expected the alpaca/llama/merino to end up. Wild Horses measured in at 210 yards once plied.

The really weird thing is that right after I took the picture below I wound both skeins into balls. They both became huge balls of the same size. Huh. After swatching, it looks like they will work perfectly for the pattern. The brown will pop out a bit from the natural white - but I think this will be a nice addition to the forest motif. It calls for 400 yards, so I should be fine-- but I also have enough fiber to spin another 400+ yards if necessary.

Over the weekend another five inches of snow fell. It certainly cleaned things up, but certainly doesn't help you at least pretend that spring is around the corner.

Last fall I spun CMF superwash sock singles in the "Born to Be Wild" colorway. They sat on my bobbins for at least 3 months. Last weekend I thought enough was enough, and I plied them while watching a so-so episode of "Meet the Press". (Oh, how I still miss Tim Russert!) It's about 650 yds of tightly plied fingering sock yarn.

When I posted this yarn to Ravelry in my stash, I couldn't help but call it "Soo Girly". It's not quite my taste, but will make for a great future gift!

Stonehenge Cowl

Was it last fall when I bought this beautiful BFL "Stonehenge" roving from Crown Mountain Farms? I remember Angela loved this roving after seeing it, and bought a bump of it, too. We both starting spinning at about the same time-- Interestingly enough, I think we both preferred each other's received version of the colorway. Mine (above) was pretty, yet muted. Hers had a bit more of a punch, and turned into this truly gorgeous laceweight!

I split the 8 ounces of roving in half and spun them into singles on my Reeves Frame. I did not use the fractal method. The color was spun just as it came.

The singles were tightly plied together, and I was really happy with the resulting sport weight yarn. All in all, there was 475 yards.
After letting the yarn marinate in the stash for a few months, I decided to knit the spiral cowl by Keri McKiernan with it. What a joy to be able to knit with yarn you have made!

After a wet block, it's just perfect.

Roy G Biv

Over the weekend a friend mentioned to me that she thought my blog was in competition with another to see who could go the longest without posting. Heh. Without going into too much detail, the post below was started sometime in December of 2008~ I guess I've been spending waay too much time at work, or something. :) When I'm home and not working on a project I tend to spend too much time on Ravelry, too
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Do you view your yarn-in-waiting as stash or a collection?

I've always had a project or idea in mind when buying yarn. It was always stash- Sock yarn took me in to the "Duh, it'll be socks" mode.

Well, ahh... here's a few socks' worth:

This is Wollmeise sock yarn, and it has clearly brought me right to collection mode like no yarn before! It's an addicting yarn, indeed. The colors are great, and my often-worn Wollmeise socks show NO WEAR. That's right, no wear at all!

For the most part I have greatly reined in purchases of other yarn in the past six months. (Although I could certainly use a full year break!) This was a greatly needed activity because of the Wollmeise purchases *and* new yarn coming off the spinning wheel.

Can you see the tree reflected on the screen? I wasn't kidding about December~ :)

Is it Time?

Last summer I bought a few skeins of Casbah sock yarn at The Yarnery. (Ok, more than a few. There were six skeins in total.) It feels great, makes a great fabric, and washes well. Did I mention that it's cashmere? Ok, just 10%, but it feels like a much higher amount! I've just finished my 2nd and 3rd pairs of socks with the stuff.

The middle skein (pumpkin) was used to knit Slalom, a lovely sock pattern by Elizabeth Warner. (Ravelry link for pattern download) The heel was inspired by Cat Bordhi's 'sockitecture' concept. The purls between traveling stitches increase around the ankle, and the semi-traditional heel turn is a touch higher than a regular sock. You can see the heel flap above-- it's on the bottom of the foot. I modified the pattern by knitting with 1.5 US needles instead of 1s (tight gauge), and I added an extra pattern repeat.

The fit is great, and I love the way they feel!

Over Thanksgiving I spent a few days at the family cabin just like last year. During the first few days I read the second book in the Twilight series (yes, it's teenage literature!), and knit socks.

My aunt Sandy looooves pink, so I chose the skein on the right (above). Since our family is from Germany (Alsace Lorraine region--- the other side is from Bavaria), I thought Suzanna by Stephanie van der Linden on the Germain Creative Sock List (Yahoo group) might be a good choice.

Aunt Sandy seemed to agree. Here she is is in all her morning splendor. (I don't think she would appreciate this pre- hair & makeup pic on the internet, but I think it's great. :)

The socks were knit to pattern except for the instep. I added an extra ten stitches (half a repeat) to create two full motifs instead of 1.5. She really likes them, and I know I'll see them over and over again during future trips to the cabin.

I really love when handknits are appreciated!

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For the past year I've knit with cashmere (blends) a good deal more than kitchen cotton. Is it time to finally change the name of the blog?