Intrique...

Spotted this in a thread on the Ravelry forums, it's sort of neat, but... doesn't the yarn get dirty? Or are everyone else's floors cleaner than ours?

FO: September Socks

First pair of completed socks for the Sock Knitters Anonymous SOCKDOWN! Here are my September Socks:

Pattern: Make-Up Socks by Kristen Kapur (a pattern from The Joy of Sox)

Yarn: Fyberspates Sheila's Sock in colourway Russet. Bought online at Fyberspates.

Mods: None.

Project: online at Ravelry.

A Thief in the Night

It was a busy week last week. In the strange world of academia deadlines are prophesied as long-distant events that will one-day come to pass. And so they stay, forever in the future, until... like a thief in the night the long-foreseen deadline is suddenly upon you and people are finally prepared to dedicate some moments of their precious time to writing a few words for that paper you hope to submit later in the week. *sigh*

Still, I've survived and I think I must now have caught up on the majority of sleep lost during those stressful evenings of no knitting and a lot of typing. And, thanks to Saturday's KnitCafe, I almost feel like I might have caught up with some of the knitting too....

1) The September Socks are all done bar the sewn bind off. They need a bit of blocking really to smooth out the tension down the sides a bit and I'm somewhat less excited about them than I was when I started them. I'm not sure what's changed, but they just don't quite sing for me the way I thought they might.

2) I have my first bit of potentially actually usable handspun. Just 15m of the stuff, but it's much more even than the previous attempts and I think it's also pretty balanced. Very, very happy with this.

This had spent a long time sat on the spindle waiting to be plied but I just never got around to it until I found this post on What I've Learned Along the Way. Really impressed with the effort gone to here in order to produce a really nice summary of all sorts of spindle spinning bits and bobs. Anyway, I watched the Andean Plying video by theartofmegan and, right then and there, decided it was time to ply.

My plan for this wee bit of yarn is to craft myself a wee lavender bag as stolen from Eskimimi who in turn stole it from Mooncalf (both very lovely blogs). I've got a big bag of lavender in my sewing pile so it sounds like the perfect combination.

3) My 'Summer Scarf', the Lace Ribbon Scarf from knitty is blocked. It's way too long I think, so I need to try it on and see if I want to rip some of it out or not. Also, it's wider at one end than the other (about 1.5" wider) - I guess it was worked over that period where my gauge was changing quite dramatically. Still, noone will know, and perhaps the flaws mean I shall have to keep it after all...

Perhaps I will finish some projects soon, it seems I have not yet learned the lesson about how increasing the number of things started has an impact on the size of the finishing pile :)

WIP Wednesday: September Socks

This week's work in progress is still my September Socks/Socks for September:

They're actually progressing quite well. They were held up for a while as I've been at a conference and got zero knitting done on my travels but now the heels have been turned and before you know it I'll be halfway up the leg (hopefully). Although the pattern is getting a little more repetitive as I progress, I am still happy knitting away as I'm certain these will be lovely socks.

PS - Yes, I do know September is over. The socks were for *starting* in September, they'll be finished in time for leaf fall if nothing else :)