Finished size: large
Yarn: Lion Wool in Navy and Paton’s Wool in Oxford Grey
Needles: Size 5 dpns
Pattern: Cigar from knitty.com
mods: dad wanted full fingers, so I just kept knitting the fingers. oh, and the stripe pattern is slightly different.

Started: early February 2007 …
Finished: 8 September 2007
made for: my dad. intended to be a 2006 xmas gift. (better late than never, right?)

I have a great craving to dye some sock yarn. problem - there is no sockweight dyeables in my stash. I was in the neighborhood yesterday, so poked into a yarn shop or two. one of them carries Louet Gems. but not in fingering weight (wth?!). so I went onto Knit Picks - they’re out til close to the end of October (wth!?). but look! (did I mention the dangerous?!) damn, they’ve done it again. major lust - must have rainbow birch knitting needles! the set and the sock circs. but which to start with? (maybe it’s a good thing I haven’t gotten around to rounding out my sock sets with the newer half-sizes). I’m thinking of ordering a pair of tips to test them out - but what size? last time I started with 8s as my test set, since I knit a lot of worsted weight projects. except at the time I needed 6s or 7s! on the other hand, I’ve been felting quite a bit, so 10.5s or 11s would probably be a good choice. except I’ve got two girls dresses in dk/sport weight cotton next up in the queue, so maybe I’d be better off with the 6s? (although I’m not sure if the wood and cotton would be the best combo? drag city, you know.) maybe I should just try some sock sized ones…

in news of the Coupling socks, which are now about 4 days past the swap deadline (my pal said not to worry about it), I have 2 and a half repeats done on the foot (of the second sock. I’m not that slow!). and after being so proud of myself for memorizing the pattern, I managed to mess something up. I may just fake it - who’s going to be looking at her toes that closely? (we’ll not talk about the number of errors on the first sock. not many, but if you look close enough, you’ll find a few).

in weekend news, I am heading to Wisconsin for the 3rd time in 6 weekends. a bit excessive of me, no? this time, I’m heading down (bright and early Saturday morning) for Wisconsin Sheep & Wool. I am planning to meet up with some folks from the Knitty coffeeshop around lunch, and then I’ll be shopping. my goal: to test drive a few wheels. I’m hoping to find some good dyeable sock yarn (see beginning of post) as well. and maybe some fiber. I’ve been pondering another trip down to The Fold (what’s another 2 hours if I’ve already driven 6?), but I’m not sure how well that will fit into the schedule (yeah, if I leave early enough I could get there when she opens, but then getting back to the Sheep fest in time to meet up with folks would be cutting it kind of close). we’ll see. Sunday’s plan might involve another visit to the Sheep fest, depending. and then we’ll be heading up to Devil’s Lake for a family gathering of sorts (aunts, uncles, possibly cousins. we’ll see who shows up.). and then, depending on the timing, I have a feis committee meeting to attend back home. (good thing Devil’s Lake gets me that much closer to home!)

in other news, I’m about to break our internet now that it’s finally back up to speed (we went over our bandwidth or something so they squeezed us - making it impossible to download podcasts and making regular things load really slow). unfortunately, I keep finding new podcasts. Peaknit just mentioned Socks in the City - time to check it out.

K-chan #3 and K-chan #1 - for size comparison

Finished size (post-felting): about 5″ tall and 5″ across the base
Yarn: Bernat Felting Natural Wool in Early Spring
Needles: Size 11 dpns
Pattern: K-chan from MagKnits

Started: 14 July 2007 …
Finished: 3 September 2007
made for: the heck of it. might gift it.

the bag pre-felting

back to the Knittyboard Sock swap…

shortly after finishing the sockapalooza socks, I went back to continue working the River sockamania socks I started back in June. and I gave up (it’d take to long to work out the needed modifications).

Here’s where I left off on that:

I stumbled onto a new pattern for the yarn - coupling from knitty - and cast on from the other end of the ball. and I can’t decide how long to make the first sock.

I think I have two more repeats done since this was taken.

since I’m indecisive, I’ve put the first sock on pause (I’m also trying to decide - ribbing as written or a picot edge as I saw someone else do). I started the 2nd sock on the bus Friday and have half of the short-row toe done.

was a lot of fun and I’d love to do it again. what’s better than sitting around outside knitting for a whole weekend with knitty friends?

after we got things set-up, Elizabeth gave Sue some wool. I think she likes it.

then we got down to the knitting. after which followed a theme of putting things on our heads:

Heather and her stocking-in-progress

Kathy prepares to attack the peanut butter

after dinner, we did a bit of a stash exchange and Kim gathered opinions on her Aran-in-progress

Heather loves some silk (ArtYarns, if I recall). but it did not go home with her.

and then we got the campfire going and had us some s’mores

I like my marshmallows burnt. mainly because I am impatient. it worked out though, since Ali asked us to burn some marshmallows in her absence.

here’s the group of us (without me) knitting Saturday. must have been early in the day, since it seems rather dry.

what’d I knit? sockapalooza socks (finished), k-chan #3 (almost finished - I ran out of yarn), dad’s xmas gloves (finished except for the ends-weaving), attempted to work more on the river socks (gave up - forgot foot measurements), swatched some Silk Garden, and L’s xmas mittens (finished the hand of the first one). oh, and I had attempted to start the HP bookscarf from memory, but it looked wrong so I gave up on that.

I came home with a bag of Noro Silk Garden - from Kathrows stash, if I’m remembering correctly. no clues what it wants to be yet. a Clapotis? a Lizard Ridge? something else entirely?