Big plans

Well, I managed to do almost nothing on the fibery front today. I spun a few more yanrds on my new spindle before work but that was about all. I have lucked into a 3 day weekend, though, so I'm planning to redeem myself. I have a pair of socks to make major headway on. I would also like to finish my fingerless gloves before it is too late to wear them. There is also spinning and plying to be done. With any luck this will be a very productive weekend.

But it will have to wait until tomorrow.

Temptation

I had this morning off since I was on the evening shift. I took advantage of the free morning to make a quick run to Golden Willow, my LYS. The plan was to pick up a ball of sock yarn destined to be knit up into a very plain pair of socks that I want to knit as a present to be gifted next week.

I thought I might buy one of the more heavily patterned self striping sock yarn since I never get a chance to use it with most of my socks. After much contemplating I ended up buying a much plainer ball of Trekking XXL. The more patterned stuff just really didn't speak to me.

So I picked out my sock yarn and made my way to the till. And right there near the till was a jar full of Magpie Woodworks spindles. I have often considered ordering one of these spindles and here was a whole selection of them available without the worries of shipping. I succumbed to temptation. I am now the very happy owner of a top whorl cherry spindle.

My plans to cast on and get to work on this slightly rushed pair of socks gave way to playing with my new toy. I regret nothing.

Food and fiber

Well, I took full advantage of having today off. I slept in, did some knitting, did some spinning prep, did some spinning proper and made quiche and sweet potato pie. I did not, however take day-lit photographs. In fact, by the time I decided to take pictures for my blog (which was well after I had eaten quiche and pie), I couldn't find where I had put my knitting project. So instead, here is a picture of some of the rolags I made out of the Shetland fleece sample:


I decided that I wanted to try spinning it with a worsted draw so instead of rolling the fleece off my handcarders top to bottom I rolled it side to side. This results in funny little rolags that are much shorter than the usual variety. I think I've spun a bit more than half; this picture is of all that remain.

I can't say that spinning Shetland this way is all that easy, but with mix of really different fiber lengths I don't think that spinning it woolen would be much simpler. I plan to prep the white Shetland to be spun woolen to see if I'm right about this.

Change of plans

Sadly two person knit night was canceled because the other person wasn't feeling well. I shouldn't say 'canceled' since 'postponed' is closer to the truth. Since I was planning on spending the night at home I actually picked up an older project that has been languishing and started putting on the finishing touches.

My plan was to finish the neckband, take some bad flash photos, and then write about the whole history of the project. My mother invited me out for a beer, though, so knitting and photography was put on hold. I'm not complaining, it was a very tasty beer. The result is that I'm quickly writing up a post minus both knitting details and pictures before the strike of midnight.

Tomorrow is a day off, here, so there is some chance that knitting, photographing and blogging will take place at a more reasonable hour. Unless, of course, there is some change of plans.

I'm a genius!

No new knitting to share tonight. I still need to find the needles I want to use for my fingerless gloves and I haven't cast on anything else in the meantime. This is sure to change tomorrow since it is my two person knit night and I will want to bring some sort of knitting.

Until then I thought I would share something about the crochet I showed off yesterday. As I'm pretty sure I have mentioned before I learned to crochet well before I learned to knit but I never did much with it and I never followed a written pattern. The first pattern I followed was for the hexagons I started back in April. It is a really clear, nicely written pattern so I didn't take my success with it as proof that I could actually use a crochet pattern.

After the hexagons I followed a pattern to learn to make granny squares. Again I thought that this only proved that I could follow this particular pattern. So yesterday when I found a picture in the old crochet pamphlets that caught my eye, I decided to see if I really could follow just any crochet pattern. Low and behold I could.

For several minutes I felt like a genius. Here I was able to follow the confusing looking instructions and make something that resembled the picture provided. Then it hit me that this are not a confusing code that I managed to crack using only my tenacity and careful reasoning. This was a set of instructions meant to be followed and written to be as easy to follow as possible. Oh well it was a nice feeling while it lasted.

Day of rest

My Sunday off turned out to be less the day of knitting and well lit photographingthat I had planned and more a day of sleep and small projects. I ran some errands I needed to do with limited success and organized some of my stuff but that was about as productive as I got.

I kept starting or almost starting something only to move on shortly after. Most of what I did accomplish was a direct result of my foray into organization.

First I made a home for some old knitting and crochet patterns I was given several years ago. Inevitably I spent some time flipping through the pattern booklets looking for interesting things to make. This led me to try to follow one of the crochet patterns. It makes a table cloth of joined squares and I wanted to try to make one of the squares. I got this far before I had to run my errands:


I'm not using the right hook size or the correct yarn but it is more of a little experiment than anything else. I've learned that I can follow crochet instructions and I'm getting used to how to read my finished work.

Second, I found my hand cards so I made rolags out of the Targhee and the Grey Romney fleece that I got at the guild meeting. I then spun them up long draw on my wheel. I'll let them rest a day or two before I wind them off to ply. Unsurprisingly, the short stapled Targhee spins much better long draw than the long stapled Romney. I think I will try spinning the other two colours of Romney short draw.

And that was basically my day. I'm looking forward to next weekend when I actually get two days off in a row and I can run errands, catch up on sleep and get some knitting done. Or at least that is the plan and I think I've shown how good I am at following through on this sort of plan.

Whoops

After writing last night that I had made two pairs of sock out of one ball of Opal sock yarn, I took a closer look at the pair of Rick socks and realized that the colour was the same but the yarn was not Opal. Then I remembered that I made a pair of ankle socks out of the Opal but forgot to take a picture of them before I gave them away. So while it is true that two pairs of socks were made out of this yarn it is not such an amazing feat after all. Sigh. That is what comes from not keeping better track of my summer knitting projects. I could also blame my penchant for buying very similar colours of yarn again and again.

While I'm admitting my faults I might as well share a not very good picture of the fingerless mitts I am making to match my orange hat:
I finally weighed my remaining yarn and I am cautiously optimistic about getting a pair of matching mitts of a reasonable length. Looking at the fabric produced so far, though, I am less sure about knitting these mitts with 4.5 mm needles. I think I may rip out my work so far and restart with 4 mm needles. I want my mitts to be a bit tougher and denser than my hat since they will be seeing more rough wear.

Luckily I have tomorrow off and I can devote some time to serious knitting. Unless, of course, I sit down at my spinning wheel. Whatever happens, I'll try my best to get in focus pictures in natural light.