Finished Object Friday

To celebrate the new episodes of Gilmore Girls, here are my Stars Hollow Xmas socks:

The lace pattern got a little more lost than I thought it would, but oh, well. 

This is a project that has been going on for months.  I bought a bag of animal shapes where the profits from the sales were going to Heifer International.  I happened upon a sweater pattern for some of the animals and faked it for the rest.  The yarn is all leftover from various socks I've made this year.  Not pictured is one bunny that hopped away while I was setting up the animals.  Also not pictured were the two T-rex.  Have you ever tried to make a sweater for a big dinosaur with little bitty arms?  Me neither.

Work almost in progress

My WIPs are the same this week as last week with a little more done on each of them.

I have a plan for Ravellenics.  That's the thing on Ravelry that runs concurrently with a certain event that occurs next month in Rio.  My goal is to use up abandoned yarns and projects.  I think I posted about the scarf I'm doing.  It was originally going to be an afghan but I couldn't get gauge on the yarn I wanted to use.
I've decided to do a stripe per day during the event.  The yarns I chose were all from deep in my stash.  One has been around for 8 years.

Then some people on Team TARDIS started talking about using Vincent and The Doctor yarn for their projects.  This is a colorway by Quaere Fiber.  I have three balls of it in my stash.  It was for a shawl that didn't work out.

I found a free shawl pattern called Vortex that looks like it will work out fine.  I have no idea if there will be enough time to finish it along with the scarf.  At least it will get enough of a start that it should be finished soon.

Sounds a bit like famous last words.  Hee hee.

All the socks I finished...

...passed judgment.

Tour de Sock Stage 6

I won at yarn chicken but not by very much:

The numbers are the required twists and were put in to help out the judges.  They'll no doubt look better with some blocking.

Yarn Chicken

I finished the first of my stage 6 socks last night.  The awkward pose is to display all the crazy cables:

I was very discouraged when I saw the amount of yarn I had left.  I was pretty sure I would not have enough to complete the second sock.  I thought I would give up.

Then I weighed the sock and the yarn.  Sock is about 56 grams and the remaining yarn is about 59 grams.  I think I'll do the second sock, but not drive myself nuts getting it done fast.

The pattern is what we suspected.  There are 7 sections that can be twisted to the left or the right.  It's fun in a geeky sort of way.

Tour de Sock Stage 5

I was 34th in this stage.  I'm 53rd overall, which isn't too bad considering I didn't finish the stage 3 socks.

There are almost 500 people in the Tour who have scores of some sort.  More than twice that many signed up for it.  That may sound odd, but some did it to get the patterns to do later.  Others did it because the sign-up fee goes to Doctors Without Borders.

WIP Wednesday

Here's a quick shot of what's in progress:

The pinkish one is Knit From Stash July
The purplish one is Knit From Stash June
The stripey one is Where You Lead I Will Follow

They are all sitting on the big bag with the afghan in it.  I was making good progress on it for awhile.  After the halfway point it was obvious I was not going to be happy with a woolly blankie on my lap in 90+ degree weather.  I wasn't that much in the mood to do socks, so I've been alternating between three different patterns.  It's goofy, but it works for me.

The final Tour de Sock pattern comes out at 1 am.  It involves solid or semisolid yarn, something like a 7-sided die or a spinner with 7 choices on it and a coin that will give clear heads or tails.  There was no mention of a cable needle, but we're all suspecting cables.  The heads or tails might give a left or right twist to the cable.  The 7 choices?  It might have something to do with the number of rounds knit or the number of stitches twisted.  We're all pretty sure that no two of us will have exactly the same socks.  Possibly even the pairs won't' match.  Anyway, I've got 7 stitch markers in a little bag and a 1 franc coin for heads or tails.

Stage 5 Done

There's also patterning down the back and on the bottom of the feet.

I don't know what to do with myself first.  Cat suggests going out and getting her some more dry food and taking a shower.  Not necessarily in that order.

Llamas!

Look what the Tour de France bikers get to see try to ride around:

I have redeemed myself

Danger, hot weather

It's hot.  My a/c doesn't work.  It would take a couple of guys with sharp weed cutting things to clear a path to the unit and I am not sure where to find people like that.  The only place in the house that's reasonably comfortable is in front of the computer.  There's a fan blowing nice cool-ish air on me.

I've been clicking around, trying to avoid the latest news of what horrible things people have been doing to each other.  One of my Ravelry Friends got the cutest darn set of sock yarn stuff from Simply Socks.    There's a project bag with a print of vegetable seed packets.  The stitch markers look like little vegetables.  The yarn matches everything.  It's sold out, so don't go looking for it.  At least I didn't have to talk myself out of buying it.  Simply Socks has such a nice variety of sock yarn that I did have to talk myself out of browsing the site.  No more new yarn until a bunch of the old stuff is used up!

Now where can I go that won't either tempt me or make me worry endlessly about what this world is coming to?

WIP Wednesday

I'm a little bit burned out on sock knitting.  There are two more pair for Tour de Sock, so I'm working on other things at least until that's done.

I bailed out on a mystery knitalong earlier this year.  The yarn I bought for it has been sitting in a big tote bag, glaring at me.  I found an afghan pattern for free on Lion Brand's site.  It's going pretty well so far.  It's more fun than socks and the yarn isn't mad at me any more.

That's about half of it.  The other half has the same leafy pattern.

The yarn for the knitalong has been dealt with, but what about the pattern?  It wasn't the pattern's fault I couldn't get the correct gauge for an afghan.  The pattern's pretty cool.  You have two choices of patterns for 18 different sections.  I saw some of the patterns done as scarves and decided that was what I should do.  I'm going to use up some fingering weight stash yarn, which is good.  I'm going to make it for Ravellenics 2016.  Eighteen stripes, seventeen days of the events that will be occurring in Rio (I'm not sure I can use the O-word without being accused of denigrating the games).  Seems  do-able.

Projects that are not quite in progress are a shawl and some socks.  The shawl pattern is a fund raiser for the families of the Orlando victims.  The sock pattern is a Gilmore Girls themed pattern.  I know I said I was burned out on socks, but it's Gilmore Girls!  Also the pattern won't be available until Tour de Sock is almost over.

Stage Four with fingers crossed

I haven't gotten the acceptance email yet, but think these will be okay.  I know they are a vast improvement and much more fun than Stage 3 was.

Stash Enhancement Friday

...because on Saturday I'll be busily knitting and spilling beads all over the place.

I was looking through my stash today and really need to start using  more of what I have already.  I'm about to pass from SABLE to where my stash can be seen from space.

The two skeins from Invictus arrived.

 Soft Kitty is nearly as soft as my cat.

So Koi Confetti also has bits of silver in it.

Today's mail resulted in these from Knitted Wit.

 Fairy Garden

Witches Brew

Finished Object Friday

Less than 2 hours before the next Tour de Sock stage starts.  I'm doing all sorts of little odds and ends to pass the time.  I got the eyelets and handles on my sheep tote, so that's all done.

I finished up these tiny hats last week.  There's a fourth on in the set but I didn't like the pattern and I ran out of yarn.  Win/win in a way.  :)

I finished these last week, too.  They were from a mystery KAL.  The legs could've been a lot longer, but I wasn't in the mood to do more.

Here's a better picture of the pattern: