Tour de Fleece: Day 5

...and Tour de Sock, pair 4. They're the reason I haven't gotten more spinning done. They're also reason that this is the best picture I could get of them. Must sleep.

Tour de Fleece: Day 1

These are likely to get boring fast. I intend to take similar pictures when I can to show progress.

The next Tour-de-Sock starts in the morning.

Tour de Fleece: Day 0

I have a finished object, but it wants blocking and I don't feel like doing it right now. Instead, here's what I plan to spin through for TdF:

If I can spin it thin enough, I have a plan for the yarn. I've got a set of Tour de France-themed footie patterns. I'll use this and some other handspun to make them. The stuff in the front is my Green Stamp fiber plus samples and leftovers. The braid in the back is what I'll work on if I need more to spin. If I run out of that? There's fiber stash. It isn't as serious as my yarn stash, but there's no worry about running out any time soon.

WIP Wednesday June 26

This is Tiberius, one of the Cookie A patterns for this round of her club:

Tiberius is the T. in James T. Kirk. The other pattern this round is Spock. The yarn is my first Wollmeise. I can see what the fuss is about this popular yarn. The stitch definition is great.

Tour de Fleece starts Saturday. I think it goes for three weeks with a couple of days off here and there. I plan to use my drop spindle for a minimum of and hour a day. I may dust off my wheel for the challenge day. It depends on how challenged I need to be. My goal is to use up some stuff I call my Green Stamps fiber. I'll mix it with some compatible samples left over from some Phat Fiber boxes.

Tour-de-Sock's fourth sock starts Sunday morning. This particular sock may be why I won't want to be excessively challenged on TdF's challenge day. I may be in a fetal position on the floor, covered in beads. This sock uses 500 (250 per sock) beads. There's no pre-stringing. I'm viewing this as an art project and not something I ever plan to wear.

Off to Tami's Amis to see what the other kids are doing.

Mad Geek Tour

Quick, click away if you happen to be in the Tour and don't have your shipment yet.

Okay. I'm fascinated by the colorway (purple/light blue/gray/black). I'm not sure how it will knit up, but am really tempted to drop everything and start in on it.

I like Jessalu's bags. They are well made and use clever prints. However, I'm getting really tired of tiny figures on light blue backgrounds. This may be because I've used a bunch of similar fabric from Spoonflower. I have at least three of her bags that are not distinguishable at first glance.

I'm not doing the next round of the Tour. I'm attempting to use up more yarn than I take in. If that wasn't an issue, I would play again. Also, I'm doing the next two rounds of Yarnbox.

Finished objects!

Yay, some objects are actually finished. The Woodland Mittens collection is complete:
February

March

The latest Tour-de-Sock pattern's called Lebowski and Star Athena designed it based on The Dude's sweater. All the color combinations people are coming up with for this are great.

I was 11th this time. Eventually the moving up won't continue. I'm not being overly negative. There's a sock coming up requiring 500 beads for the pair. I can knit okay with beads. I just can't do it quickly.

Time to go visit Tami's Amis and see what other folks are finishing.

A new sock book

I've got more sock knitting books than I can shake a dpn at, but yet I ordered another one. I got to it via my usual convoluted path. One of the patterns in the book showed up in my Ravelry recommendations. It was by one of my favorite designers, Heatherly Walker. I discovered that it was in the yet-to-be-released book American Sock Knitting. Since I can save a couple of bucks by ordering it before July 15, I did just that.

The pattern I liked is called Jersey Turnpike. It reminds me of an old Simon & Garfunkel song that has lyrics about "countin the cars on the New Jersey Turnpike". Yeah, I'm nearly a geezer and am easily entertained. I wasn't familiar with the other designers in the book, so maybe I'll be getting some more new favorites.

What I need is a new rule: knit at least one pair from at least one book I already have before I go ordering any more books!