FO Fail Friday

The Kelso Hoodie fits pretty well (loose and comfy). I suspected that I'd be unhappy with the color variation from skein to skein and I am. I'm going to do some research and see if I can overdye it. I'm also going to make sure that if I ever buy a sweater's worth of yarn from a small operation that I make sure they know the colors need to be a whole lot closer than this. It does have a hood, but I didn't want to take any more pictures. The upper back and the hood are in yet another shade of blue.

Nothing else done because I was burned out after finishing those Tour-de-Socks and because there was no power during prime knitting time twice this week.

Tour-de-Sock: Sock 2

I finished in under 2 days, which is more of what I expected. I'm 13th for this round. There are a bunch of Finns who knit so fast that I'll never move past them on the leaderboard. No matter, I'm just doing it for the fun of it.

What Next?

Upcoming Projects

• Tour-de-Sock: 5 more pair, with patterns released about every 10 days.
• Tour de Fleece: daily spinning from June 29-July 21
• Animal Crossing: New Leaf. This is a much-anticipated game that should arrive within the next week. Given my obsession with the previous Animal Crossing game, it'll be a fight to get any knitting or spinning done once it arrives.

Things to fill in between Upcoming Projects

• Kelso Hoodie: 5-6 more inches. I'm bored to tears with it and need a project to alternate with this.
• Widow Mayhew sweater: hasn't been started and will be a bigger project.
• Sheep sweater: not that much of it has been done and it's a bigger project.
• Duplicate Stitch sweater: possibility.
• March and April mittens: possibility. Take care not to use needles assigned to Tour-de-Sock socks.
• Wee Tiny Lion sock: possibility.
• Who anniversary project: many of these are socks and you don't want any new sock projects during Tour-de-Sock.
• Bunny Slippers: felt the pieces and assemble them. Also felt the wee tiny pieces. Possibility.

I think I'll alternate between the mittens and the hoodie to start with.

WIP Dark Day

The power was out yesterday for about four hours, so there was no chance of posting anything.

The Temperature Scarf is up to date. I'll post a picture of it in a month when it hits the halfway mark.

The Kelso Hoodie is all done except for the hood! I lit all the candles I could find and slogged away at the back for a couple of hours last night. The pattern's written so you start at the bottom front and end at the bottom back. There's something that bugged me about having the whole back upside down. I did it in the round instead, dividing it for the front and back. This results in a whole bunch of grafting. It goes from the edge of the sleeve all the way to the neckline. That's twice, once for each side. I told myself I really didn't want to do it by candlelight, but I had nothing else to do. I did five stitches and tada! the lights came back on. Ten more inches of hood and it is done.

Bear in a Tin

I like Frankie Brown's designs. When this one popped up in my Ravelry Recommendations, I had to give it a try.

Tour-de-Sock: Sock 1

I am really glad this one's done. It took half again as long as I expected. Size 0/2mm needles? Cast-on from hell? Slowing down in my old age? I don't know.

ETA: I'm 31st out of a possible 503, so that's actually not that bad. It's just not what I'd hoped.

Twisted

When I signed up for Tour-de-Sock, I knew there would be at least one of "those" cast-ons. They have names like Modified Tragikistani Super Stretchy Extra Long Tail cast-on. What I didn't expect is that I would have to face one on the first freaking sock.

My nemesis is the Twisted German Cast-On aka the Old Norwegian Cast-On. My German and Norwegian ancestors are no doubt giggling in their graves at my pathetic attempts to learn this. The source of my problem appears to be that I'm supposed to be knowledgeable in many different kinds of cast-ons. I'm not. Every video and every written instruction I've come across says that this cast-on is just like the whatever cast-on except you do x y and z instead. Here's an example from the Reader's Digest Knitter's Handbook.

The German Twisted cast-on is just like the German cast-on:

except you do it like this instead:

It's not instructional, it's twisted. I think I'll go do something a lot more fun, like cleaning out the cat litter box.