the knitting’s taken a bit of a break since May. I’ve been sort of working on the Country Kiddie tank top for a friend’s little one, and really should get it finished before she outgrows it. This is the yarn I’m using:

in WIP other news, I’ve started the Positive Energy Shawl (from Patons, though it’s no longer available on their site). I’m not sure why I’m making it (other than 4 of the 6 yarns being in my stash already), but I’m actually enjoying it (despite it taking two hours to work 4 rows). Started June 28, here’s the progress through today:

so, I’d been happily knitting along on the Nagini socks more or less through St Patrick’s Day weekend. I’m steadily working my way through the cuff, when last week (or was it two weeks ago?), I finally decided to try it on. it is TOO TIGHT (damn cables) to get over my heel without much effort. it fits fine once it’s on though. there is frogging the cuff back in this sock’s future. I’m going to try going up a needle size and see if that helps. if not, I’m going to have to do something funky to get it to cooperate, since the stitch pattern doesn’t seem to have an easy way to add stitches to it.

to add insult to injury, I picked up the Fair Isle mittens again around the 18th. finished what little was left on the first one, and then started the second one during the Guild meeting and had them prety much done by the end of the week. I’d been trying them on off and on, and figured that any tightness would go away once the thumbs were added. yeah, not so much. they are still too tight. I’m not sure if the pattern as written is too small for my hands, if my poor stranding technique is pulling in too tight, or if it’s a combination. so, they too will be hitting the frog pond. I’m thinking they fit ok up to the thumb area (before the major stranding kicks in), so it won’t be a complete frogging. maybe I can work some gussets in for the thumbs while I’m at it.

in the meantime, I’ve picked up the scarf mom picked out at WI Sheep & Wool last fall. it’s a lot of short rows, but it was easy enough to memorize the pattern. the downside is that it’s a lot of short rows and is (seemingly) taking forever.

I also picked up the felted penguin again and worked on it Thursday during knitting group. go figure. (it’s a new group that just started up in Excelsior.) I’m actually sort of surprised at how easy it was to work on (aside from rotating the balls of yarn to prevent the mass of tangles that happens when I attempt intarsia).

This weekend I’m heading down to WI to craft with friends - the usual quilting crew. I’m trying to decide if I want to take the spinning wheel too or just focus on the sewing (with a knitting project for downtime). Then it’s on the the Yarn Harlot’s shindig and Yarnover the following week/weekend. I’m taking the afternoon cables class at Yarnover - should be fun.

and yes, I’ve been spinning. more on that later.

sorry for the lack of updates last week. I had to make a last-minute trip to Virginia (and can I just say, what the heck? that is not how I’m used to them being written here. is it a regional thing?), during which I did escape to a couple of lovely LYS - Fibersmyth (where I resisted the sock yarn that’s hand-dyed for them that has a bit of sterling silver in it) and Frog Eye (where an 8 oz ball of Interlacements dyed superwash fiber insisted it come home with me). Both shops (and their owners) were very nice and if you’re in the area (hopefully for more pleasant reasons than my trip), I’d highly recommend a visit.

In spinning news, I started spinning some Brown Sheep Mill Ends before I left, and spun a bit more on it as soon as I returned Sunday. (You have no idea how upset I was at the thought of the wheel not fitting into the suitcase.)

and in knitting news, I’ve been rather monogamous to Nagini (though I did take my Fair Isle Mitts along for the trip as ‘insurance’ knitting. you know, just in case I managed to whip through the socks*). I am a few rows shy of finishing the heel on sock the first. oh, and since you’re dieing to know, I chose the darker green (on the left) for the toe. for now. I haven’t kitchenered it yet (which may be a good thing if the sock isn’t quite long enough, I can add a few rows to the toe end instead of ripping out all of the heel. although that is tempting since it’s a plain stockinette heel, and I haven’t knit socks with a plain heel yet, and am unsure if I’m a fan or not.)

* I probably could have whipped through the socks (or at least the first one) if I hadn’t discovered a bit of a problem on the flight into Virginia. knitting happily away, I come to the end of the sole stitches, and somehow manage to notice a little run away stitch a good 8 or so rows down. mild panic. then I remember that I did manage to pack the tiny crochet hook (no small feat - I booked the flight the night before I left. so frazzled during packing). I attempted to ladder it up as is, though I knew from reading many knitting blogs and forums that it would probably be too tight. so I fished around for the safety pins and anchored that stitch and it’s neighbors and dropped down and did some surgery. got all three stitches hooked back up and looking good except at the start. pulling and poking the stitches wouldn’t make them play nice. then I look at the inside - I missed a strand/row all the way back at the beginning. at that point we were close to landing, so I just packed it up.

the next morning I worked it out at my grandmother’s table after breakfast. she (a knitter back in the day) commented that she rarely fixed her mistakes. If it hadn’t been on the inside of sole of the foot, I probably would have left it, but I knew it’d feel awful, so I fixed it again.

Vintage Velvet is at a pause. I finished the knitting of the 4th ball, and now I think it’s too short. so I’m undecided if I want to hunt down a 5th ball (finding the 3rd & 4th balls was enough of a challenge) or leave it as is and hope it stretches out a bit.

what kind of sock is this? where’s the toe? or the ribbing? nope, not a sock.

I’ve been swatching some Koigu and finally cast on a pair of socks (it’s been too long). Nagini (a Socktopia/Momma Monkey pattern) is now in progress using stashed yarn. They’re my current bus project. I did a provisional cast-on because I couldn’t decide what color to make the toe.

I also cast on a pair of fair isle mittens for myself Saturday evening. That one is using half-stashed yarn. (I bought the main color earlier on Saturday after a spinning meet-up)

In spinning news, I’ve started the second bobbin of the pewter. I have 6 oz of it and have decided to try a 3-ply. Only problem is, I only have three bobbins - I think I’m going to have to order some more.

oh, and I pulled out the beads and wire and made this:

granted, the Louet’s have a large enough orifice that you really don’t need a hook, but I wanted one. and it’s nice for adding an anchor when letting it ply up on itself to see how the yarn will look

a close-up of the beads

yup, I’m making yarn. I’m taking a spinning class at The Fiber Studio with Virginia Parent. Our first class was last Tuesday - this is what I made that night:

I then went back on Friday to practice and created this:

I forget what fiber we used that night. I think it was a Corriedale cross.

in between spinning classes, I’ve been working on the sunflower tam, which looks like this now:

last night was our second class, and it went a bit better:

Coopworth

Corriedale

both of these fibers felt a bit ‘grippier’ than what we used last week, so I felt a bit better about letting it get thin.

we played with the hand-cards with the Corriedale, which is ok. I like the rolags you get, but not so much the act of carding. I tried spinning directly from the jumble of fleece (picked out a bit first) a little towards the end, and it went ok.

I’m tempted to see what I can do with the alpaca locks I bought ages ago (was going to be a SP gift, until I reread her info and saw she was allergic/sensitive to it. bah!), or maybe I’ll spin up the fiber I bought at Shepherd’s Harvest last year. I’m planning to head back down to practice some more before our next class - there’s a spinning group meeting at The Fiber Studio this Sunday (it’s the first Sunday of the month at 2pm, if anyone else would like to spin. are you busy Deb?)