7 nights to go

I have a few things to finish by the end of the month, and only 7 non-work nights left. (I can take knitting to work but it's been far too busy lately to get even a few rows in.) I have yet to finish

* spinning for Quidditch (a third done)
* socks for Quidditch (needs cuffs, heels and toes x2)
* socks for a class (needs cuffs, heels and toes x2, too)
* a class I haven't even started yet.
* another class I haven't started yet.

I've just clicked over 1000 points for this term in the HP knitting game, but I've got over 300 to collect somehow in order to beat my personal best (in a term I did an OWL).

At least my OWL is done. I made a project for each house; this month it was the two spinning ones for Gryffindor and Ravenclaw.

The 2ply BFL (the red and yellow one) is underspun (although I thought it was overspun) and it looks very underplied now, even though it's balanced. It's supposed to look tightly twisted when it's finished, and that also makes it stronger. David says it would be better to have tightly twisted unbalanced yarn if I want to use it for socks, but if it's curling back on itself it won't do for the sock machine. It's also a bit too thin. 100g of regular sock yarn is, say, 400y, and this is 566. I could have N-plied it and it would have looked much nicer and still been sock yarn.

Oh, well. One day I'll make a 2ply I like. Possibly.

The Ravenclaw one is lovely, though: N-plied polwarth and tencel. I've already wrapped it up ready to go, although I think I will make it a Mission for next term, which won't start until May.

Today I finished two things: Armwarmers (which are being called legwarmers for the purposes of Muggle Studies, which had to do with the Eighties)

(Byron's legs. He ran off with them after this, saying how warm his legs were...)

and a handspun cowl

.

It's about 14 inches high, and  bunches up around my neck nicely. Not sure about that pale green, though. That may end up tucked under and sewn down as a hem.

I've also finished this slouchy little cabled hat, which is for the charity box.

Now it's 8:30, and I'm going to keep going with my very colorful and bright merino spinning (for Quidditch!) and some green socks. 6.8 nights to go!

P.S. Warning for SCF spoilers



.





New stuff! I got  a "sweater quantity" of fibre from February's SCF club

and this March special edition from Lorna's Laces. This is the Quintet. It's sock yarn, 25g each of the 5 colors in their colorway of the month. I also got a skein of sock yarn and worsted weight yarn. Unfortunately, the colors in the other two are not so bright (more of a semisolid brown) so it's not obvious that they're supposed to "go together". But I daresay they'll look ok. I'm thinking of a shawl with this set, and a hat with the thick skein and gloves with the sock yarn skein.

Not so boring

My Mission (for the Harry Potter knitting game) was to "knit something boring, like lots of stocking stitch, so you can concentrate on eavesdropping on potential baddies", so I chose a long, grey stocking stitch top. I used 5 skeins of Madelinetosh Chunky, which is one of my favorites, in a color they called "Kitten". It has increases down the sides to make it flare out, which I like, and I finished it off with some moss stitch around the edges. It's done!

And I didn't find it the least bit boring. All those grey stitches have subtle color changes, and the stuff is so soft and nice to knit that I could have kept going... except I have no more yarn. I literally finished with less than a meter. I had to cut off the ends of some of the joins to finish off the cast off.

I really do love grey; I don't know why I don't knit it and wear it more often. It will go with everything this Winter.

The OWL projects are going along well. This month I have to spin two fibres, one for Ravenclaw and one for Gryffindor. This one is on the wheel at the moment:

This is "Twelve". David (at Southern Cross Fibre) was doing a Doctor Who theme for his club colors that month (the other colorway was "Dalek"). I've split my two bags of Twelve in such a way that the stripes should stay roughly the same thickness while the rows get longer and longer. I'm planning to knit it into "Hitch Hiker" for my Mission next term, which will neatly cover three fandoms in one project and make me a Proper Nerd. hehe.

Last month I used up about 1200g of yarn and fibre (although spinning just gets added back to the stash, but still...) and gave a bit away to Byron, and received 200g from SCF. This month is not doing so well for destashing. I used up FlyBuys points to get a bunch of extras of February's fibre club, and then I decided to get a few skeins from Jimmy Beans Wool as b'day present to myself. We're only about a week into the month, and I've already gotten about a kilo of fibre in the post :)

Never mind. Still ahead. LOL.

Also...

Finally used my set of Strickwear Merging Colors that I bought in a destash ages ago. They're a set of 8x 30g skeins of laceweight, slowly changing from pale green to reddish brown. I had to count the strands in a skein to work out the yardage, and then ball them all up. Only one had been balled up when I bought it: the green. And that one had been chewed by something in its previous house.

This is some of it. Sigh. But I managed to warp the loom, using two strands held together and doing ten 'slots' per color.

I put a texta mark on the left side at every 10 inches (making 8 sections) and then started weaving, changing color whenever I got to a texta mark, holding two strands together as well. So there is a rectangle of "green crossing green" on one corner and "brown crossing brown" at the opposite corner, and a diagonal line between them of "solid" rectangles.

Also this month, I used up all my "Esmerelda" N4ply to make a hat and some handwarmers. The gloves are the simple ones like I made the kids this year, except I did a few extra rounds, and did 3x2 ribbing throughout.

And spun up some green Eider

and some very nice Polwarth

I separated out most of the purple first, so I could have a handful of coordinating color. Seems to have worked out well. Pepper did "play" with a bit of the purple, but it's almost all there!

And now onto March, which is just a little longer. I have 10 things planned! Not sure there are quite enough days for that, but I'll try. Must get points! lol...