Downton Abbey's Back

...and of course it has inspired knitalongs. When I read about the one sponsored by Jimmy Beans Wool, I knew I had to do it. Here's the explanation from the Ravelry listing for the Downton Abbey Mystery KAL 2014:

Starting with merely a basic shawl pattern, this truly mysterious KAL is based on the film drinking games of our college years with a “Choose your own Adventure” sort of twist. The difference is that in this case we’re taking a more productive approach: instead of drinking when something happens on Season 4 of Downton Abbey, we’re knitting a specific stitch pattern into our shawl! -On the morning before each episode airs on PBS, you will receive a set of directions for that evening’s episode.

-There will be 2 options specified in the directions: one for beginners and one for intermediate knitters.
-Your directions could be something along the lines of: “When Bates sneezes, knit 4 rows of seed stitch.” (Or something like that!)
-The rules are designed so that rarer events require more complicated or laborious stitch patterns.
-For those of you that didn’t or couldn’t watch, we’ll release the “stitch pattern key” to the episode the day after the show airs.

All you need to play is 500 yards of DK weight yarn. I've got a big old skein of polwarth/silk from Indigodragonfly which should be perfect. The only tricky part will be watching what's going on. I have the tv on a lot but my attention's nearly always on my knitting.

Use It 2014

This is the Use It 2014 jar:

It contains a dozen different yarns. They have all been in my stash for over 5 years. My goal is to use up one each month next year. Nearly half of them were gifts from various swaps, so I don't feel quite so silly for having them this long.

Every year I swear that I'll use up more yarn than I bring in. Maybe this will be the year it actually happens.

Look what I won!

It's Lorna's Laces Solemate in the Zombie BBQ colorway. I managed to collect enough points in the Super Sock Scarefest to win it. This is quite bizarre because I was just thinking about Solemate not ten minutes before I logged on and found out about this.

Project updates

Wreath: it's hibernating. I got to the third or fourth layer and it stopped looking cute. It starting looking like a yarn-eating creature had gotten very ill all over it. I'm considering a number of options. I'm not in to mood to experiment on it right now.

Advent Scarf: It's coming out okay and I'm keeping up with it. Can you tell I'm not excited?

The Doctors cross-stitch: I've got a design worked out that will include all 13. Moffatt has stated that John Hurt's character is a "real" Doctor. Since he's dressed similarly to the Ninth Doctor, I'll do a few tweaks to that pattern. He'll be between Eight and Nine. It'll be quite a while before we know how Peter Capaldi the new guy will look. I plan to do a simple outline for him based on all the other patterns. Stitching has yet to commence.

Sock monkey socks: I get obsessed with things from time to time. It could be gargoyles, Hello Kitty, gnomes, Doctor Who, etc. Sock monkeys are part of that. Santa is bringing me a pair of pajamas with sock monkeys on them. I decided that I had to have a pair of sock monkey socks to go with them. It amuses me to think of socks inspired by something that was made out of socks. I'm adapting a sock monkey Christmas stocking pattern into something that can be worn. It's coming out okay.

Temperature scarf: less than 3 weeks until it is done! I work on it every week or so. What's a temperature scarf? I record the high temperature every day. Each block of 5 degrees is assigned a yarn: 35-39 degrees is Violetta, 40-44 is Angels have the phone box (dark blue), and so on. I knit two rows of the scarf pattern for each day. It's good nerdy fun.

Mini Sweaters

Berroco's released a new collection of mini sweaters. They're free, they use up leftover sock yarn, and there are four collections so far. What could be better?

Wouldn't a wreath decorated with a bunch of these be cute? Add it to the list of someday I'd like to do that.

Countdown projects go timey-wimey

What happens when one decides to do two countdown projects? Well, besides getting behind on both of them? A third project pops up. This one is a set of all of The Doctors in cross-stitch. Terry Louise of Tasmania is posting these on Livejournal. They're cute, not too complex, and very nicely charted. I will be doing them eventually. I've got some ideas about combining these with a couple of charts I bought on etsy. I'm tempted to abandon my other projects in favor of this one. If I wait until after Christmas, there may be a way of including Twelve in the project. I'm still calling the new Doctor Twelve despite recent events. Leave it to Moffatt to mess with the fan's heads by screwing up the count.

Scarf progress: two days yet to knit. I'd be up to date, except I was busy with the wreath.

Wreath progress: base is done. Leaves for day 2 are done. Leaves need to be arranged on base and sewn down. Leaf arranging had me so crazed that I was screaming at the cats. I put it down and apologized to the furbabies. I haven't touched it since last night. I ran out of printer paper so I'll be forced to stay away from the knitting and get more (three new pattern updates to print daily, you see). I didn't expect to keep up with this one. There are still acorns, holly, and ivy to do so far.

Holiday Countdowns

I was happy to locate Drops Designs annual free pattern advent calendar. I'm putting it here in case someone wanders in and might enjoy it. Also, it's where I can find it again.

I happened upon a Advent Calendar Scarf. The designer posts a new section every day. I had some yarn from an abandoned scarf project that would work, so I've started on it. I'm doing it half the actual pattern width.

Two years ago I did an Advent Garland. The designer is Frankie Brown of Frankie's Knitted Stuff. Her freebie this year is a Woodland Wreath. Note: link is to Ravelry. It's really cute and I can use some of the Garland ornaments in it. If I can remember where I stashed them. I can use up some of the big bin full of sock yarn leftovers, too.

Kristin the scarf designer and Frankie of the wreath are both offering their patterns for free. If you're moved to pay them for their efforts, each has a link to children's charities. I'll definitely be going back and clicking those.

The pattern links are to page in English, because that's what I speak. If you've happened upon this page and you work better in another language, you may be in luck. Drops Designs has their patterns in a bunch of different languages. This continues to amaze me. Kristin's scarf is in German and she's very kindly supplied an English translation.

A mile a month

According to Knitmeter, I've knit about a mile every month so far this year. Here's the stuff I finally got around to get pictures of.

Celestarium shawl

Dragonfire scarf/shawl (a bit big for the teddy, but works well on a human)

Hat whose name I've forgotten already, knit with yummy silk/merino blend yarn.

Hat knit with the yak/bamboo yarn.

Yak in the mail

My mailbox was literally overstuffed with goodies today. The letter carrier could barely wedge the last box in. I was expecting the brown yarn from a trade and the two doll kits. The surprise was the Yarnbox. It contained two skeins of yak down/bamboo blend yarn. I've thought about trying it but thought it might be too expensive to play with. Now I've got some and it wasn't expensive at all. The Yarnbox also came with a packet of Soak and a link to two shawl patterns. I think I'll go check them out.

Doctor Who 50 Project

It's done, with two days to go. The goal was to complete one Who-themed project for each Doctor in the year before 11/23/13.

1. Flesh and Stone socks using Who-themed mini skeins.
2. Tardis mitts
3. Dalek shawl
4. Bigger on the Inside shawl
5. Bowties are Cool mittens
6. Insulate! hat
7. Show Me the Stars socks
8. Tardis Afghan (started in 2012 but finished this year)
9. Socks using Medusa Cascade colorway
10. Reverse Polarity socks using Vincent and the Doctor colorway
11. Silence socks
12. Dalekanium socks (not pictured)

UILI 2013 done

I met my goal and plan to do this again next year. Here's what got used and when it first appeared in my stash:

1. Knit Picks Dancing 10/2007. Made into Dancing Dalekaium socks.
2. Schmutzeralla Yarns Dude 10/2012, Sheepy Time Knits Sheepy Feet 11/2011. Made into Water for the Elephants socks.
3. Knitters Brewing Company Sock-aholic 11/2010. Made into Striation socks.
4. Regia Color 5/2008. Made into Romy's Two in One socks.
5. Noro Kureyon Sock 1/2009. Made into TGV shawl.
6. Yarn Pirate merino sock 2/2008. Made into Anastasia socks.
7. Hand dyed sock yarn received in a swap 10/2007. Made into Drip Drip Drop socks.
8. Claudia Handpaints 10/2007. Made into Sake socks.
9. Belfast Mini-Mills sock 8/2008. Made into Delius shawl.
10. Yarntini semi-solid sock 3/2010. Made into Little Deschutes socks.
11. Rio de la Plata sock 2/2009. Made into Swamp Thing socks.
12. Zitron Lifestyle 6/2008. Made into Metopsilus porcellus socks.

Sold/Traded in 2013: Knit Picks Felici 10/2012, Online supersock (4 balls) 4/2012, Brown Sheep handpaints 11/2010, Crystal Palace Panda 4/2008, plus two more pair of sock yarns in a pending trade

Use it or Lose it update

I enjoy getting all involved in a long-term series of projects. More often than not, they fizzle out. This sort-of happened with my UILI project. I neglected to post my completed work to the forum in a timely manner. I did keep up with using up yarn and selling it. My original goal was to use or lose one yarn per month this year. I've done more than that. My new goal is to use one yarn per month. I only need to do one pair of socks to meet the goal. It'll have a bonus of me using a pattern from a book I had to have and haven't used yet. Now where would I have stashed that yarn 5 years ago?

Triple Sock Score

These socks gave me credit in three different projects.

• Woman in Black socks aka Bonus Pair #1 in the Super Sock Scarefest. The weeping gargoyle is crying because they took for-ev-er to finish. I decided not to do any more of the SSS socks for the moment.
• WIP completed for the Op-Art Socks group. They're having a few little projects before the KAL starts in January.
• My Doctor Who 50th anniversary project. The colorway of the yarn is Medusa Cascade.

Gift-A-Long

I just happened upon this and wanted to share:

Gift-A-Long is a multi-designer promotion to help you kick your holiday gift-making into high gear. From Nov 1-15 patterns on the Gift-A-Long boards are 25% off the coupon code “giftalong” at check-out of your Ravelry shopping cart. Patterns are PDF downloads on Ravelry, where you can post your projects, chat with crafters, designers, and win prizes in the Gift-A-Long KAL/CAL. The discount runs from Nov 1-15, the KAL/CALs will continue until Dec 31. GAL is an Independent designer promotion.

You can find them in the Indie Design Gift-a-Long on Ravelry. They can also be seen on Pinterest.

ETA:Be careful if you buy these in the middle of the night. The credit card associated with my PayPal account decided that a bunch of little purchases looked fraudulent. I'm still clearing up the little mess that caused.

Yarn in the mail

The first of my late night purchases arrived. This is the Noro Taiyo Lace:

The colorway makes me think of purple pansies. I want to drop everything and cast on the scarf, but I won't. Next in the queue is finishing up a single pair of socks that are required for three different projects.

The yarn for the Southern Skies arrived in the same shipment. The beads came yesterday. I'd call them close enough in color rather than a perfect match.

I've got one more round to do on the Celestarium shawl and then the edging. Then I will finish that sock. Really, I'll finish the sock and then maybe cast on the scarf that uses the Noro. Well, maybe in that order...

She's at it again

Trick or Treat? It's another night for treats. Knitter's Brewing Company is one of those places where I often give in to temptation. I think the last time was a kit for watermelon socks. Tonight's a kit for Fangtastic Socks. The kit's got your choice of the main color, mini skeins for the contrasting colors, your choice of one of four themed stitch markers, and the pattern. The physical kit's backordered but should go out next week. There's a pdf version of the pattern. The link for that has already popped up in my email box. You can order a paper copy if you want one.

I didn't intend to buy more, but the bats were so tempting. I may do the pattern with just bats and skip the vampire heel. Happy Halloween!

Insomnia Girl goes Shopping

I should be really tired but I'm not. It's the middle of the night and I've been shopping. I promised myself I could acquire some yarn for a specific project as a birthday present for moi.

I've been working on Celestarium. It's a circular shawl with constellations worked in via beads and yarnovers. If you were at the North Pole and looked up, it is what you would see. It's fun and easy and the first thing I've made in a month that I haven't screwed up majorly. I decided I'd do the pattern's South Pole version, Southern Skies.

I poked around on Etsy and didn't find anything suitable for the project. I did happen upon a dyer that is new to me. The Yarns of Rhichard Devrieze come from Canada. If they are half as pretty as the pictures, I will be happy. I only got enough for one pair of socks, so it wasn't all that naughty.

I headed back to Ravelry for some inspiration. I found a scarf pattern that I want to knit. It uses multicolored laceweight with long color repeats. I was charmed by the yarn. It turns out that it's only available in Europe. Well, I might be able to order it from Germany, but my ability to communicate in German is pretty much gone. And then there's the shipping. Noro makes laceweight so that's what I decided to use. I suspect that the color repeats aren't as long as the original yarn, but it should work okay. I found the Noro at Paradise Fibers. I ended up getting the yarn for Southern Skies there, too. It's Kollage Sock-a-licious Sock Yarn in the Blue Heaven colorway. It's a semisolid almost turquoise blue. The beads are from Fire Mountain. If my monitor's showing colors correctly, it should be a good match.

Uh-oh. Back to the email box for those purchase confirmations and what also appears? A sale notice from Gail Wilson Designs. I've been a fan of Gail Wilson since the 1980s. She had all these cool kits for making tiny dolls and teddy bears and bunnies. She does gorgeous early American style dolls now. I ordered a kit to make two tiny (2.5") dolls and one for making a pumpkin man.

I think I'm done now. I ordered what I intended (and then some) and confessed my sins here. I'm still not sleepy, so it's time for a Godzilla DVD and some more Celestarium knitting.

Checking in

I'm in one of my weird sleep cycles. I'm 12 hours off of what a normal human sleeps plus occasional naps. It's kind of tricky if one needs to get things done.

I've not been getting the Scarefest socks done. Well, at least not correctly. The most recent one looks like a cauldron dripping green stuff. It's pretty cool and the leg worked out well. The foot was dreadful. I think the yarn was heavier than fingering weight. I chose to not finish the pair. I may do some more of the Super Sock Scarefest socks as they appear, but am not going to obsess over getting them done.

I went back to my 50th anniversary of Doctor Who project. The goal is to have completed 12 Who-related projects by November 23. I've got three more projects to do in six weeks. This is what I finished yesterday:

The pattern looks like a bunch of weeping angels. The funky colorblock look is courtesy of mini skeins in Rose Tyler, Amy Pond, and the 10th Doctor colorways.

I knit them with my new Dreamz dpns. I like them very much. Each of the six sizes has its own color. Also, each needle has the US and metric sizes printed on them. No fooling around with multiple needle sizers. Yay!

I got my physical copy of Op-Art Socks today. It's going to be fun and challenging to knit through this book. I was wondering how the wild pair on the cover. It takes two balls of the same long color repeat striping yarn. Looks like big fun to me.

Zombie Freebie

Want to knit something other than clothing or stuff for your home? Don't want any fluffy bunnies or pink unicorns? Try this freebie.

Off the yarn diet

I've been pretty good about not buying yarn. I even talked myself out of another yarn club (cool idea, but it was international and the postage made it unreasonably expensive). Discount codes and coupons started accumulating, so I decided to use some of them as birthday presents.

From left to right:

• Black Trillium Fibers superwash merino in the Saltwater colorway
• Candy Skein superwash merino/silk in the Foilwrapper colorway
• Candy Skein merino/nylon in the Candy Corn colorway
• Lorna's Laces merino/nylon in the Franklin's Panopticon colorway

I also ordered two sets of Doctor Who-themed mini skeins from Geek Chic Yarns.

I snapped two of my Knit Picks dpns in the past week. Between that and having to double check the sizes every time I used them, I'd had it with the set. I ordered a set of Knitter's Pride Dreamz dpns. Each size is a different color. I think that will make knitting happier.

I could use another present. I wonder if there's a US-based yarn club that I'd like to try?

Swamp Thing

I finished another pair. These are for the Scarefest:

I knew a shiny object would catch my eye and I'd go off in another direction. The 1200 yards of Candy Skein yarn sat next to me on the desk. They kept telling me I needed to do a search on Ravelry for a nice pattern for them. I picked Celestarium. It's a circular shawl with northern hemisphere constellations on it. I haven't started it yet because of yet another possible distraction. There is a group doing a sweater in a month knitalong in October. I've got a pattern and yarn gathering dust that I've not gotten around to starting, so maybe this is the right time to do it.

Or maybe not. What was that shiny thing in the corner of my eye?

Dreadlocks

The One Love pattern may call them tendrils, but I'm convinced they are dreadlocks:

It's a minor miracle that I actually finished something. I've got two or three pair of socks in progress and a pair of mittens. In the midst of this, I got a craving to spin something. I got my new spindle out and did a couple of ounces. I (surprise, surprise) got bored with it. I'm spending fiber time alternating between spinning and knitting. No doubt a shiny object will catch my eye soon and do something else.

Yarnbox, take 2

I was happy to pull these out of the Yarnbox today:

Note that my attempt to tweak the color muddied it up a bit. It's really a nicely shaded purple.

It's three skeins of fingering weight from CandySkein in the Black Currant colorway. The box also contained codes for free patterns for two designers. Both designers and CandySkein offered discounts on their products. The other version of the box offered a DK weight yarn from Annie Yarns. I think I'll go check that yarn out.

I decided to continue my subscription at least through the next cycle. I hope they do another Indie Box like this one.

Sheepy Solids

Here's the latest from Sheepy Time Knits Time Traveler club. The color's called Noble:

I'm glad that the last several offerings in this club have been pretty much solid. Here are the previous two, The Veiled Detective and Pandorica.

The knitalong through Stephanie van der Linden's book is going to require a whole lot of solid colors.

I am knitting again. I found a Mock (mystery sock) that's a lot of fun. The pattern's called One Love and it requires one to use the craziest wild multicolored yarn in your stash. I used a skein of Mad Color yarn. I thought it was crazy and wild until I saw some of the other colors people were coming up with. The sock has options for a tame version, but I'm having more fun with the wild one. It has dreadlocks.

Vacation from knitting

My second Scarefest sock was a fail, as is the picture of it:

It's supposed to be ivy climbing up a brick wall. The ivy was fine. I did something squirrelly with the brick pattern and it didn't work out correctly. The foot would've been enormous. I would never have worn the socks if I finished them. I chose to chuck them in the frog pond and move on to something else.

The something else was this set of Doctor Who-inspired little shop signs. I'm going to redo the TARDIS one, but am satisfied with the rest. The plan is to do a bunch of embroidered pieces and put them together with fabric patches and make a patchwork pillow.

My Doctor Who swap person gifted me a mitten pattern called Starry Night. I'm going to try that next.

Double Idiot

I'm beginning to wonder about my brain. Today I got my Doctor Who swap. It was a great box of goodies. One of the things I got was this yarn:

It's Allons-y from Skeined Alive yarns. I thanked the sender for introducing me to a new yarn and that I liked it. I made her laugh because the yarn wasn't totally new to me. It was actually on my etsy favorites and that is why she bought it. That alone was enough to make me want to beat my head against the wall until it started to work correctly. It wasn't the only thing, though. I also thanked her for this:

It's the front and back of a pillow. I thought it was a bag. D'oh! I made a pillow form to put inside of it and it's all finished off now. I did remember how to use the sewing machine.

I think it might be sleep related. I haven't slept more than 4 hours at a stretch in a couple of months.

Super Scare Sock 1 (or maybe 2)

I'm not entirely sure of how many socks are in the Super Sock Scarefest. This is the first official one, called Faces in the Wallpaper. The heel was a little different than usual. This resulted in counting problems (do you count the wrapped stitch when you wrap and turn or is it a stitch unto itself?). I fudged it and it came out okay but not perfect.

Stash -4, Books +1

There's one thing that's certain in my life: if I have a positive balance in an online paying account, it won't stay that way for long. This week I was able to send off four balls of yarn I bought by mistake. How does one buy yarn by mistake? When one sees the yarn as a great bargain and then neglects to note the yarn weight. I thought it was fingering and it turned out to be DK.

Last night I was poking around Etsy. I decided to buy a couple of cross-stitch patterns I'd been wanting. I may be working on a cross-stitch project until my brain remembers how to knit properly. I still had a positive balance after that little shopping expedition.

It was Ravelry that finished off the rest. I happened upon a group that's going to work through Stephanie van der Linden's new book. I really enjoy her designs, so I got sucked in. The book, Op-Art Socks, hasn't been published yet. Interweave's got a deal right now where you can order the book and get the e-book immediately.

Not bad for a shopping mistake.

Look, a shiny object!

Lack of concentration and more than average frustration continue to rule. When I was here last, three socks were in progress.

Sock 1: too big. Project sent to hibernation.

Sock 2: not enough yarn. It's handspun that I got as a gift. I'm probably going to frog a sock and a half and use the yarn for something else.

Sock 3: very splitty 8-ply. There's only half a sock to go. It is pretty much knitknitknit to the end and I can't seem to force myself to finish.

The first SuperSockScarefest pattern comes out tomorrow, as does the first one for Sock Sniper. A sensible knitter would finish Sock 3 and wait patiently for the patterns to come out. I considered that, then took a look at my Ravelry recommendations. Oh look, there's a crochet version of a shawl I tried unsuccessfully to knit. I'm going to go do that.

Knit one, two, three...oh look, a chicken!

My ability to concentrate has disappeared. My only excuse is that I was sick for a couple of days last week. When faced with the choice of knit or sleep, sleep won out every time. I think I've got a full-blown case of knitter's ADD.

I've got three pair of socks on the needles currently. I'm bored with all of them. I tried starting another afghan square, and managed to screw up a simple four row, four stitch repeat. Into the frog pond with you, afghan square.

The good news is this didn't start until after I shipped off my Doctor Who Odd Ducks swap. The bad news is, the recipient has had the package for several days and I've gotten no thanks. It's probably because the recipient is new to Odd Ducks and her camera phone is broken. It still is stressing me out not to know for sure if what I sent is okay.

I did get one thing done after that, though. The Super Sock Scarefest had a pre-scarefest pattern and I finished it:

The little guy in the middle is a vampire that someone made me in a swap awhile back. He's really cute. I used him in the picture because the yarn colorway is The Brat Prince (aka the vampire Lestat).

The actual start of the SSS is just days away. I better finish up at least one pair of the socks or I won't have any needles to spare.

What's next?

I don't know if I'm in a negative frame of mind or if it is a whole run of screw ups. I bailed on the second sock in a pair. It had embroidery on it and it came out looking yucky. I restarted the afghan square I was working on. It was coming along fine this time and I found a mis-crossed cable. It's quite a way back and it has to be fixed. Sigh.

I may have mentioned pre-ordering a book called American Sock Knitting. It arrived yesterday. There are 13 patterns, each inspired by a different part of the United States. There are some recipes, too. The patterns come from a lot of different designers. I think I'd like to make most of them.

I signed up for this year's Super Sock Scarefest. I did it in 2008 and for some idiot reason forgot about it until it appeared in my Ravelry suggestions this week. Heatherly Walker aka YarnYenta is the scary mind behind this. I think she may have been how I found the American Sock Knitting book (she has a pattern in it). But I digress. A new pattern is released every 10 days between September 1 and October 31. They all have some kind of scary theme. One pair called The Gardener had this on the back of the heel:

Prizes can be won, but I'm just aiming at some stash busting.

Progress, or the lack of it

Projects have not been going the way I want them to lately. Maybe if I post about it, I'll get it out of my head and things will smooth out a bit.

Deleted: the sheep sweater and a duplicate stitch sweater that's been kicking around for at least 15 years. I frogged the sheep because the colorwork wasn't very smooth. I started it again and it didn't look that much better. The sweater on which the duplicate stitching was going was white. 15 years of stopping and starting made it not as white. I wasn't sure it could be cleaned adequately, so continuing was pointless.

Swap projects: they all came out good enough to send. I did something dumb constructing a project bag that I've made dozens of times. It was made with a small amount of some very specific fabric, so starting over wasn't an option. It looks okay, just not the way I wanted it to look. I keep adding more stuff to the swap box, kind of in a way to make up for the stuff I didn't like enough. The latest was a Moleskine journal with a slipcover to make it look like River Song's journal. I hope my partner likes it. I hope she likes all of it, at least a little bit.

WIP: The Great American Aran Afghan is going s-l-o-w-l-y. I seem to have forgotten how to count. Counting is essential when you are making many varied cables. The new goal is now one square a week. Maybe breaking it down into a bunch of little projects will make it go better.

Done: I did the Dalek lace version of the Bigger on the Inside shawl. It was fairly tricky. Like everything else lately, it isn't perfect. I liked it better once it was blocked, though.

Quilt: I started quilting and some of it worked and some of it will require threads being removed and done over.

The one thing I'm actively working on is coming out okay. It's a pair of socks from last year's Socks That Rock club. I may actually keep these.

WIP Wednesday July 31

First square, Great American Aran Afghan:

Variation on the Bigger on the Inside shawl:

A quick shot of the Temperature Scarf, done through July:

Fo Friday 7/26

If you finish spinning some yarn, does that count as a finished object?

I clearly need more practice. Still, it was fun finishing up this bit of merino/alpaca with my brand new spindle.

Fun in the (e)mail

Mike of The Spanish Peacock sent a picture of my new spindle. I'm excited for it to arrive.

I've been really good about not buying yarn. I checked my Ravelry stash and the last non-club yarn I got was a sweater's worth back in April. I had a coupon from SpaceCadet Creations that was a club thing. I decided to use it now since I'm facing a bunch of home repairs. The colorway's called Diaphanous:

Note that the grayish brown fiber on the right side is not part of the yarn. It is part of a cat who refused to move.

Tour de Done

Tour-de-Sock: I did one of the last pair of socks and decided to not do the other. It's a really interesting pattern made up of triangles. I followed the pattern okay but it just doesn't look that good. If the Tardis showed up and I could go back to Saturday morning, I would've made a different yarn choice and maybe finished a pair.

Tour de Fleece: I wimped out on using the wheel. I made it about 3/4 through my bonus braid before starting that triangles sock.

I have been keeping up with the Use It or Lose It project. Despite nearly missing posting my July entry, I won a pattern! Patterns are great prizes for a stash reduction project. I've got nine complete projects.

Next? I don't know what's next. I've got some sewing to do.

Yarnbox

I received my first shipment from Yarnbox today:

The yarns are various forms of recycled silk. I like the idea of poor women being able to get a decent wage by producing this yarn. I like the idea of waste not going into landfills because it becomes yarn instead. What I don't like is getting four skeins of yarn and having zero idea of what to do with them.

The information that came with the box indicated that this was a one-off and they'd be going back to whatever the usual box is next time. I'd like to suggest that if they do it again, they give some kind of an idea what to do with it. Most of us can come up with something to do with a skein of more traditional yarn. What do you do with 117 feet (not yards )of silk fabric pieces? Or 32 yards of worsted weight recycled silk yarn?

My expectations were fairly neutral before I got the box. I think I'll give them another month before I cancel my subscription.

Tour de Fleece: Day 19

I finished my basic goal. This pile of strings is 825 yards of Green Stamps yarn:

Why the name Green Stamps? Back in the previous century, some supermarkets used to give out stamps based on how much your bought. You'd paste the stamps in little books and when you got enough books, you could go pick out free stuff with them. Fast forward to a couple of years ago. I was buying some fun theme batts from someone whose name escapes me at the moment. For each batt you bought, you got virtual green stamps (that being the name of one of the most popular stamp companies). When I got enough green stamps, I got some free batts.

I missed two days of spinning on the Tour because I was under the weather. I don't feel too bad about it because I did meet the goal I set for myself. Tomorrow's the challenge day. I'm going to get the wheel ready to go and finish the Tour using it.

I ordered a custom spindle a couple of days ago. It doesn't make much sense since I'm planning on working with the wheel, but I don't care. The spindle has my name on it in Gallifreyan. Nerds rule.

No. More. Cables.

Here's the latest Tour-de-Sock entry:

I didn't think the socks would ever end. I'd keep knitting more cables and the idiot things would not get longer. I'm happy that I won't have to touch any knitting needles for a week if I don't want to. No worries, Doctor Who Odd Duck spoilee. The next projects for you involve sewing and crochet.

WIP Wednesday and ...

...Tour de Fleece Day 12. There's more going on than the spindle shows. I was moving some singles off of the spindle and putting them on the niddy noddy. The yarn snapped and I wasn't able to find the end. It's buried in there somewhere.

The turquoise stuff is my Spock sock. It has a fraternal twin, Tiberius. Spock is slightly narrower than Tiberius, but I think they'll even out when they are blocked.

The fabrics are from Spoonflower and at least one of them will be a project for my Doctor Who swap spoilee.

Visit Tami's Amis and find out why she chose grape soda over sugar snap peas.

Tour de Fleece: Day 9

It's about 430 yards of fingering-ish weight, two ply. This is most of what I've done during the Tour. A little bit was spun pre-Tour. I had a day when I couldn't face knitting one more stitch and I picked up the spindle instead.