Shur'tugals woohoo!

Fiiiiiiinally finished my first socks for the SS62011 sock club. Thank goodness we have 2 months to finish them. (Of course, it would also help if I could stop getting distracted by other projects!)




I finished them last night, sitting in Macka's listening to "The Boy From Oz" on my ipod, and doing the "Jeny's super stretchy bindoff". I got so distracted by Jarrod Emick's polished voice, I actually almost left them on the table!! lol!

I just love the way the pattern flows into the heel flap, toes and ribbing. The pattern itself is a bunch of twists that's supposed to look like dragon scales. Red "Smooshy" was a good yarn for it, but I've seen so many beautiful versions from the sock club group.

I did the large size (72st around) with 2.5mm needles, and modified it for toe-up, which worked out fine. I ended up with 25g left, too. Hmmm... red Elijah?...

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Here's another little finished object... yet another phone sock. I did this one on 2.5mm, so it's a bit of a tighter fabric, and I ended (at the top) with an icord edge that turned into a crochet chain. Then I threaded the crochet chain through the icord. Looks neat, but doesn't pull open as smoothly as I thought it would. Anyway, nice to use a bit more of the Casbah up.

And look what arrived about 10 days ago! Yarn from Webs, which only took two-and-a-half months to get here! lol. The green is destined to be one of Jacki's patterns...

An unpublished one. Mysterious...

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At the moment, though, I'm in the mood to work on Vivian. After all, I started it in 2008... it should be a bit closer to completion than it is!

Valentine

At Bendi last May I bought a bit of "Ewe Give Me the Knits" fibre that was 80% merino and 20% tussah silk. It's the softest stuff to spin. I dyed it up first to make a Valentine's Day themed color. The 100g braid on the left was thrown into a pot as is, and the others were a bit more spread out. But they all got the same mix of red food dye (with a smidgeon of pink, black and yellow).



The 100g that wasn't braided spun up fairly dark pink, and even though pink is far from my favorite color, I did like this. It had specks of pale green in it, and different shades of pink, and made me think of roses. Awww. ;)

The braided one is on the right. It was much paler, as you can see, so I decided to ply the two different colors together. I find it a bit easier to wind the singles off the bobbin straight onto a ball-winder. Then I let the 'yarn cakes' bounce around in the washing basket while I ply them on the wheel.

The end product ended up a bit thick-and-thin looking. Perhaps it's because the colors contrast, or maybe because I was being a bit lazy. Hehe. This is 208g and 188m. So fairly thick for a 2ply. Hmmm. Laziness it is...

Happy Valentine's Day!!

Too cute

You just can't help but love Elijah!




I did this one with Sanguine Gryphon Bugga and 2.5mm circs. The circulars were a tiny bit awkward at times...

but they worked. This Elijah is a present for an unborn baby, and the yarn, I thought, was a nice neutral gold/green color. Remember this pic? Well, the skein I got, knitted up, was a bit less gold, and a bit more "army camo". Since it's no longer quite as "gender neutral" I decided to add an optional pink scarf, with a bit of hand-dyed merino scraps ;) I'm sure a girl will like him just fine, but you know... tiny knitted accessories... I just needed an excuse.



I just love his little round feet :D


Here is a little handspun. I entered the 'competition' on the Ewe Give Me the Knits rav group, and the theme for January was "Australia". Tried to make rusty orange/green/blue. Byron even helped me dye it, which he thought was fun. But I found that I disliked the orange and blue plied together. Can't imagine what I'll knit it into. One for the stash-heap. lol.


February's spin challenge is "Valentine's Day". I dyed last night and started spinning today while the kids were having a nap. It is very pink!