More bad yarn-ma

When I knit socks with self-striping yarn, I make an effort to line up the stripes. I'm not always successful, but I try. Therefore, it does not help if the yarn has not one but two splices in it, spaced not all that far apart.



See the yarn ends waving to you? (The yellow ones are hard to see but are near the needles on the right.) Now I am definitely not lined up. BTW, this pattern uses an "eye of partridge" heel flap which I just love.

I knit on these socks at work over my lunch period, so progress is slow but steady. At home, I have picked up the February Lady sweater again. We have the occasional sunny day, but there are enough chilly, rainy, is-spring-ever-going-to-arrive days that I don't mind working with wool. Yet.

BTW, there is a survey on honesty over here, on one of my other blogs, in case you are interested.

The early bird gets... nothing

A friend of mine is having a rough time. Some of us thought it would be a good idea to send her a care package. I know this friend has a beloved Tiffany lamp, and thought it would be fun to design and knit a dishcloth using a Tiffany lamp theme.

Tiffany lamps use bold, primary colors for the most part. Dishcloths use cotton yarn. I do not have much bold, primary-colored cotton yarn. Stash enhancement expedition!

I don't shop at Hancock Fabrics often enough to remain on their regular mailing list, but they recently sent me a flier anyway. The one sale item I noticed was 50% off Lion Brand yarn. Serendipity, baby!

So I stopped by the store the other night, grabbed a basket - I was planning on a major yarn purchase - but there were no signs indicating the yarn was on sale. I asked the young man at the checkout if he had a copy of the flier. He did, and we discovered that the sale does not start until April 30.

So now I have to wait TWO WHOLE WEEKS to make that major yarn purchase. Oh, the humanity!

I'm a wiener!

Look what I won from Half Baked:



I love the cover; it looks like it belongs on my coffee table. The book is full of stunning photographs, intriguing patterns, AND enticing recipes. I'm not much of a tea drinker, but maybe that is because I don't know how to really DO tea. And if I buy a tea set, I'll have an excuse to knit a tea cosy.

I'm not much of a book buyer, either, relying on the local library system to keep me in reading material. Here are a couple of recent checkouts:



Most books on spinning have at most one chapter on spindling, but this one is just for us whorlmongers.

And my homespun is why I picked up this one:



This book includes a pattern for a neck warmer knit from super bulky, which is just what my early spindling attempts turned out to be.

Fools Rush socks - done!

I finally finished something!

Pattern: Fools Rush socks by Cassandra Thoreson
Yarn: Yarn Daze in "crabapple"
Needles: US1
Modifications: None

The directions were well-written except for the lack of detail for the gusset. A sock newbie would have a right to complain about that. Otherwise, the pattern was relatively easy, except for the cuff. And I would recommend following the pattern recommendation to knit the cuffs on smaller needles. I didn't and they are kind of loose.



I told my daughter she could have these, but after blocking they seem kind of big. When they dry, I will try them on myself and see just whose feet these are for.

Not so prolific

I stopped by Ravelry this morning, which painfully revealed how little knitting I have accomplished this year so far. This is partly due to my trying some new and difficult things like toe-up socks and twined knitting, both of which kind of bummed me out. The Fools Rush socks and their cohort the Dublin Bay socks are coming to my rescue, though, and I am enjoying knitting again.

Less knitting is also the result of more spindling, which is very, very addicting. Some evenings I'm hesitant to pick up the spindle because I know I will not want to stop.

And as if that weren't enough:



Yes, that is a dye kit. I picked this up at the Indiana Alpaca Invitational. At least I did not come home with an alpaca or three.