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.

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