Blue

Another pair! I now have 5 pairs of brand new socks. Sigh. Next up are Police Box Sox, which are "indigo" and have a TARDIS pattern. Everything is blue at the moment. :)

I have done one more lot of singles for the Mission mix, but I'm not sure I have time to finish it this month. If I do get some spare time (and I only have 9 nights off to finish the PBS) I might do a few small things for classes (to get some points).

Also planning the next NEWT project. Inspiration is eluding me, to be honest. Perhaps I'll make a bunch of charity hats, like thirty or something. I can crank a few. I have some FlyBuys money available, and I might get some more of that MT chunky for charity hats. Charity hats should be knit in nice yarn.

The machine knitting bug has bitten me a bit. I'm actually thinking of saving for a Sock Knitting machine. It whips up plain socks or ribbed socks. Takes the "hand-made" part out of the value a bit, but who cares. I might get myself one for my birthday next year, and tell my family I'll whip them up any socks they're prepared to buy sock yarn for.

Then I might be able to keep up with socks for myself (say, 20 pairs a year) and for the kids and N, if he wants them, and charity socks, too. Could make a pair a week. I think the learning curve for CSM's is quite steep, but I know a few people on Ravelry who will surely give me some advice when I need it.

P.S. Here's a bit of the Southern Cross Fibres club that's coming my way soon. I have a coordinating one that goes with this (the yellowish color) and another that is red and green and autumny. This one's my favorite. I'm going to have to get spinning to keep up with the new stuff! And then, find some things to knit with all this handspun :)

Coloring in

This last month we've gotten some new chickens. They're actually mine ;) but everyone's eating the eggs. I'm keeping a little egg record, and in the first 2 weeks we got about 50 eggs. The kids have been on school holidays, but as soon as they went back to school (so they wouldn't be chased too much) I let the chooks out of their coop to wander around the yard.

Ok, they did chase them a little bit before school, and the 8 month old cat, Pepper, had a bit of a stalk, but the six chooks are unconcerned. They just wander about, clucking happily.

Promised Jasmine I'd dye her hair with some semi-permanent colors before school, so this is it. Bit of blue and purple, bit of pink. hehe.

This month I've dyed some sock yarn, sprinkling dye powder on first, then making a long skein and dipping part into dye pots so there would be stripes. Here's one color repeat wrapped around my rolling pin.

 And cranked another double-hat using the handspun from last month. It's too long, this one, but you can pin it into a cowl, too. hehe.

 I've been working steadily on my blue socks, which are done up to the ankle. They're simple enough, and I still like the color, but I'm getting tired of knitting socks. Still, I want to complete my little rainbow before I have a holiday from socks.

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September

Look at this cute face. You wouldn't think he could be ever naughty, right?

hehe. I told him, when I left for the Bendigo Wool Festival, that I'd get him some green yarn and make him a hat and some gloves. Haven't gotten to the gloves yet, but the hat is done, and fits him perfectly :)

He immediately reminded me about the gloves. Haha. At least he loves knitted things for now.

Finished the Denatures by knitting them all the time, even in my work break at around 3am. I did the same Fleegle Heel as was in the Rose Tyler pattern (so as to avoid having to cable on the wrong side of the heel flap) and then reinforced the heel with a strand of black. Looks a bit dodgy, and forgot to do the ball of the toe until it was too late, but it will be extra tough, anyway. The yarn is from Bendi a while back, from Stranded in Oz and called "Friar Tuck Green". Sparkles! I liked the way the lurex (or whatever it is) is incorporated in this yarn, not in bits that stick out (like many sparkly yarns) but chain plied through it somehow.

There is 7g of green yarn left. I was a bit worried. That's one of the things I hate about top-down socks; nothing you can do if you run out of yarn. If you start at the toe and you run out half-way up the leg, you can either add a different yarn that will rarely be seen under your jeans, or just stop there and have shorter socks.

So the next socks are being knit toe-up (in spite of the pattern). It's basically just a cable and rib pattern that can be plugged into any basic sock pattern anyway. I knit a bit today, while the kids were at a playground. Very bright blue, like sky blue with hints of purple. I wouldn't have thought it my color, particularly, but I'm loving it. Nice to do something a bit different.

The colorwork is on the bottom. I'm doing 2x2 squares this time, which is actually easier, and Magic Loop, which actually doesn't work. I have to just slip all the sole stitches to the other needle every second row. But never mind; I'm only doing 20 rows or so of the reinforcement.

More cranking experiments. I used two balls of DK weight acrylic that the boys had bought me one Christmas. First I cranked one holding one strand, then I joined the next ball with both ends and cranked it with 2 strands held together. So there's about 175cm of single-yarn "scarf" and 60cm of doubled-yarn "hat". I finished off the ends, and gave it to Zac, but Jasmine did a little model for me first.

Spinning!

I only spun one thing this last month, but it was a 200g skein of 6ply and equal to about 1200y (1100m) of singles.

It's just a little sparkly. One of the strands is merino/alpaca/silk and the other is merino/stellina, but they're the same colorway (Goldfields by Kathy's Fibres). One was spun from one end to the other (with long color changes) and the other was split in length-ways bits first (short color changes). So it should be interesting to see how it knits up. I think I'll try it on Cranky; that's why I made it so thick, after all. :)

Last: new colors from Southern Cross Fibres, in the mail on their way to my house right now!

Esmerelda

Land Under Wave

 Following a Terry Pratchett's Discworld theme. There were a lot of coordinates I loved, especially the red one called "Cheep", but I didn't get any this month. I don't want to drown in fibre, after all :)

If you've ever read "Wee Free Men" you might get where "Cheep" comes from. I won't spoil it for you, except to say that when I was reading it to my kids, all three of them nearly rolled off the couch laughing.

And now, back to my Mission (for the Order of the Phoenix) which is to spin 750y of a 3ply. I'm spinning one ply each of the blue-green trio from the August SCF club. The Tidepool singles are done; two to go.

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