So many hobbies!

Progress report

 

We're about half way through the Olympics and I'm more than half way done with my socks.  I turned both heels this weekend.  I've been checking my gauge regularly this time, and trying them on, and they fit just fine.  If anything, they might be a touch big, not that I'm complaining.  I'd rather have them a bit big than way too small.

I've been despairing of the lack of sales in my Etsy store in the past six or so months.  Then this weekend, someone made a purchase that cleaned me out of spindle boxes and made a dent in my handspun and roving.  I haven't had a lot of good things going on lately so when something good happens, I want to share it.  I spent a good part of today cutting out box parts and starting to put more boxes together.  I'll be spending most of my nights this week sewing.  Yippee!

Yarn for the Ravelympics Socks Relay

 

So much of my yarn is in nice, bright colors, I thought I'd try more muted colors for once.  This is Fiesta Baby Boomerang in the Quince colorway.  It's such beautiful, soft yarn, I can't wait to start knitting with it.  It's sport weight so I have high hopes I'll finish my socks within the 16 day time limit.

The cowl is done and the ends are woven in.  It's not blocked yet; I'm still deciding if I'm going to put buttons on it.  Even with the thinner yarn and larger needles (size 8 instead of size 7), it's still too tight around my neck.  The yarn is sooo soft.  I love knitting with yarn containing angora.  It's got a nice, fuzzy halo.  Post-blocking pictures later this week.

I'm really not

I'm quite sure some people would disagree, but really, I'm not nuts.  Well, okay, sometimes I take strolls that make me look like I'm a few crumbs short of a cookie, but all in all, I'm not a whack job.  My event for the Ravelympics will be the Sport Weight Socks category and not the Sock Weight category.  I'd really like to complete my event and still be employed.  It's been my experience that employers get really ticked off if you knit when you're supposed to be working.  I'd rather not live out of my car if I can avoid it.  The search is now on for the perfect sport weight sock yarn.  I'll report back when I find it.

Have a great weekend!

New Projects

I finally got around to reading the winter edition of Knitty yesterday.  I've fallen in love with the Burning Embers cowl.  Love!  It only uses 150 yards of yarn so I may be taking a vacation from my current SOP (socks-in-progress) this weekend.  This is the yarn I plan on using:

 

What I haven't decided is whether I'm going to use the darker for the bottom of the cowl and the lighter at the top or if I'm just going to alternate them for each row.  This is my handspun, BTW, that I dyed, overdyed, then overdyed again.  It's 80/20 Merino/angora.  The gauge calls for 12 wraps/inch and this is 13 wraps/inch.  It'll make a slightly bigger cowl but I can't stand having anything snug around my neck(makes my neck itch) so a slightly larger size will be fine.

I'm joining the Ravelympics again for this winter's Olympics.  I'll be on Team TARDIS and my event will be sock knitting.  Yes, you read correctly.  I'm going to attempt to knit a pair of socks in 16 days.  Between now and February 12th, I'll decide just how insane I am, meaning, will I knit with sock weight or sport weight yarn.  This is the sock weight yarn I've chosen:

 

This yarn is yummy... and a touch more purple than the picture is showing.  I haven't chosen the sport weight yarn yet.  You know, in case by the opening ceremony I've decided that I'm actually NOT completely nuts.  Oh, and I'll be using my plain vanilla sock pattern since anything fancier would just have me gibbering in a corner before the event is even half over.  I may be using sock weight, why push my luck.