Finished socks

Since I had no other commitments tonight I managed to finish the pair of Monkey socks I have been working on. I think it took me longer to find the skein of contrast yarn for the second toe than it did to knit the thing. But the pair is finished and currently blocking.
What impresses me most about these socks is that the main colour yarn is the leftovers of the pair of Rick socks I knit in June and wrote about in July. One ball of Opal sock yarn yielded two pairs of socks. I might have to buy another ball or two.

I can now say that my Christmas knitting is well underway. Now I just need to figure out what I am going to knit for my brother for his birthday later this month. Hmm, maybe I should have started with that...

A nice welcome

I wasn't sure if I was going to have a picture to show tonight. I actually managed to remember that there was a Weavers and Spinners guild meeting tonight and moreover I had both the energy and desire to attend. This meant, though, that I couldn't really spend my evening working on something to show the blog.

I was in luck, though. Tonight's guild meeting ended with the start of a fleece study. We were offered parts of several types of fleece to take home and spin up however we chose. We are supposed to bring in a small sample of our results along with details on how we achieved it. I now have bits of Sheltland (in two colours), Romney (in three colours), Targhee, Merino (top rather than fleece), and some sort of cross:
This bounty alone would probably ensure my return, but it turns out that the guild is also full of friendly welcoming people. I think my first Thursday of the month's evenings are now spoken for.

Day off

I had today off and I did almost nothing, knitting or otherwise. I did find some time to work on the Monkey socks and I am now a toe short of being done the pair. I will wait until the pair is done and blocked before I show another picture, though.

Tonight I will share a picture of my current spinning project. I took advantage of being home during daylight hours to snap this photo:It is some merino that I dyed up when I dyed the wool for Liam's Surprise Jacket. I've divided the top into 3 equal strips so that I will get clearer stripes. I've spun up one third of the top and am now working on the second third. I think the final 3 ply should come out about fingering weight.

I think it is interesting that I rarely crave spinning on a spindle the way I do spinning on my wheel or knitting but when I actually start I find it very hard to put down. I find that I prefer spinning merino on my spindle rather than on my wheel, but I'm not sure quite why.

Tomorrow night I'm thinking of attending the Regina spinning and weaving guild's monthly meeting. I'd love to have fellow spinners to hang out with. If I go I'm sure my spindle and merino will go with me. There really is something to be said for portable spinning tools.

Coffee and knit night

More or less since I moved back to Regina my friend Veronica and I have been getting together Tuesday nights to drink warm caffeinated beverages, chat and knit. Two or three weeks ago I didn't have a portable project on the go so I grabbed some sock yarn and some needles and a pattern book. My plan was to start knitting some new socks but all of the patterns in the book required a bit more focus than I had that night. So I cast on for yet another pair of Monkey socks.

It was just as well I didn't get started on something more complicated since I realized shortly after that the yarn I had picked up was already half gone. I decided to use some contrasting yarn for the heels and toes of my Monkey socks so that if I ran out it wouldn't be as obvious.

So far so good. I am finished one sock up to the toe and am about this far into the second sock:

At my current rate of progress I will need to find a new project for next week's knit night. I will also have the first of my Christmas knitting done. Hurray for Monkey socks.

Perfect fall hat

OzB wants pictures which rules out my current works in progress. Luckily (?) I have several finished projects that never made it to the blog. I think my favorite of the lot is my Snapdragon hat:
This project began back in April when I was participating in a Ravelry spin along. The challenge was to spin something everyday. I had a bunch of white wool top which I dyed up in small batches so that I would have something colourful to spin. One of the batches of top came out a really lovely bright orange:
As soon as the top was dry I sat down at my wheel and spun it up and then made it into a simple 2 ply:
I ended up with about 300 yards of yarn somewhere between a fingering weight and a dk weight. It reminds me a lot of Shetland jumper weight yarn used for colour work.

I loved the yarn but didn't have a project in mind so it remained on the top of my stash pile waiting for me to find the perfect thing. I thought about using it for some stranded work but I wasn't sure what colour I would use it with or what sort of garment it would work best as.

The I spotted the Snapdragon hat on Ysolda's blog. The yarn weight was just about right and the colour matched so I jumped on the excuse to buy the entire Whimsical Little Knits 2 collection.

I cast on September 17 and was done a couple of days later. I've been wearing this hat every chance I get since it came off my needles. It is the perfect fall weight hat and I'll be sad when it finally gets cold and windy enough here that I'll need something warmer.

I still have some yarn left so I've been working on a pair of fingerless gloves to go with the hat. I don't know if I'll have enough yarn to knit the mits I have in mind but we shall see. One of these days I'll get a picture of them...

It's November already

Now that it is November all of the Christmas knitting plans that have been quietly stewing in the back of my mind should star appearing on my needles. Since I've got several hats planned, a few pairs of socks, and a sweater I should really be getting a move on. So far I'm half done one of the pairs of socks and I'm getting ready to place an order with Knit Picks for the sweater yarn.

November also means that it's time for NaBloPoMo, which gives me some extra motivation to return to the blogging habit.

Here's to a productive month.

Surprise

At first I didn't have internet on my computer, and then I spilled coffee on my keyboard and got by using my mouse alone, and all the while I was spending most of my knitting time working on secret projects, but eventually I bought a new keyboard and finally found time and inclination to show off some knitting on my blog. Surprise!

I thought it was appropriate to take this opportunity to show off a project that I was working on sporadically for the better part of my blog silence. Though I don't think I mentioned it on the blog, my brother was expecting a baby boy in mid October. I decided that this was a good excuse to make another Baby Surprise Jacket out of handspun. To this end I bought some superwash merino roving and dyed it blue, yellow and brown.
Since I'm not crazy about spinning superwash merino worsted style, I took my hand cards to the coloured roving and turned it into a pile of rolags. This mixed the colours and toned them down.
I then sat down at my CPW and made a nice woolen 3 ply.
Sometime in the course of all of this my nephew Liam was born. Since he arrived on time in the first half of August, there was no real hurry to get him wrapped up in a wool sweater. However, as the end of September approached it seemed like the right time to get the sweater started. I finished it on October 4, just after the cold weather arrived.
There was a day delay between when the sweater was all ready to go and when I could drop it off, so I took some of the leftover yarn and knit an Aviator cap. I'm really glad I did, too.