Spin by day and ply by night

This morning before work I managed to finish spinning the last of my spindle singles. I was planning on letting them rest a little before trying to ply them up. That didn't happen.
After making a couple of really small samples, I decided that I wanted to make a 3 ply yarn. Going by weight I tried to split the singles into 3 equal parts. I wrapped the singles around some large marbles I had on hand and then plied from these balls.

I must admit that there was some cursing in the early going. Part of my problem was that the cat decided to help by chasing my little balls. I took a short break and when I picked it up again things went much more smoothly.

I'll probably make a small skein tomorrow and set the yarn. I look forward to seeing how the final product turns out.

Pictures as promised

Success

The socks did not get finished but I did get a lot of spinning done at the birthday fete. I'm going to chock this up as a success. I'm also going to post pictures tomorrow. Promise.

I give up

Even after working away at the unfinished sock at knit night tonight it is still only at the heel. There is sadly no way that this pair of socks will be done in time for dinner tomorrow. Unless I called in sick at work... no, these socks will go unfinished.

Happily, though, I realized that while they would be late as a birthday present, they are a Christmas present ready well before they are needed. So the plan is that I will get something else as a present for tomorrow and hold these in reserve for Christmas.

Since they will eventually be a gift I will not be able to knit on them at tomorrow's party. Perhaps I should pack my spindle...

More than half done

Well I managed to get one sock done and the second started. I'm not sure the pair will be done by Wednesday evening, though. I only really have tomorrow evening to work on finishing the second sock. At least one is finished and can be gifted. The second will be done sometime this week I'm sure. Wish me quick fingers.

Keep going

Today I ignored the siren call of spinning and plugged away at the pair of socks I need done by Wednesday evening. I'm about half way through the foot portion of the first sock, so things are looking good.The trouble with tight deadlines is that they don't allow for a lot of ripping back to fix mistakes. I managed to make a couple of mistakes in the heel portion of this sock. The first mistake (and the only one I was even tempted to go back and try to fix) left me with an odd number of stitches after I'd finished the turn when I should have had an even number. I'm not sure where I made the mistake but if I had had more time I might have ripped back and redone the whole heel turn. Whatever went wrong here I will try not to repeat it on the second sock.

The second mistake that I realized part way through the gusset decreases involved not remembering that I had 4 more stitches on the last needle than on the other three. The result is that, instead of working the heel flap and turn on half of the sock's stitches, I worked it on just under half of the stitches. I decided I could live with this, as long as the second sock is made to match.

Hopefully by tomorrow night I will have this sock finished and it's twin progressing nicely.

Cast on

This evening I finally set my new spindle down long enough to cast on the pair of socks that I'm hoping to have done by Wednesday evening. Since I want them to knit up quickly I didn't want to chose a fancy pattern or knit them entirely in ribbing. I did, however, want them to have some give in both width and length since I am making them to fit someone whose foot measurements I don't know exactly. I've settled on knitting 3 rows plain and then knitting one row of 2 x 2 ribbing. I'm pleased with the results so far.

The race is on.