Sock Adventure

Cruising the web and looking at other people's knitting and spinning projects has had a curious effect. I began to feel in the mood to make socks. I've done this once before using worsted weight yarn, but this time, I wanted real sock yarn. The adventure began yesterday. Daughter #2 went to the "Art Yarn" shop with me for an hour of dreaming and ooooing and ahhhing. This place is fabulous. I finally decided on GGH Marathon, "Sport- und Strumpfgarn". Heheheh. I take it this is German for sport and sock yarn. ;-) Glad to see my German isn't too rusty. It's 72% superwash, 25% polyamide, and 3% viscose. It's also "maschinenwaschbar". I got a variegated green and Erin got the same yarn in browns/reds/etc.

Next it was home to find a pattern. As I was in the dreaming stage, it seemed like everyone had a free sock pattern to share. Not so much when I was actually looking for one. I finally found some at Wise Needle and chose the pine tree pattern to go with the green theme. http://www.wiseneedle.com/knitpatterns.asp#socks The pattern starts with this very weird, who--could-ever-think-this-one-up cast on. It lets you avoid sewing the toe, and it was much fun. However, the newness made it difficult and the microscopic needles weren't helping. I'm used to bulky weight yarn and I've been knitting scarves on size 15. Now I'm knitting socks on size 1. But, so far, so good. The toe is shaped and I'm happy to be knitting the rounds for the foot (no counting or paying attention needed). The yarn knits up in weird little non-distinct stripes, which adds to the fun.

Erin is crocheting gloves out of hers. We were both stitching and ripping out last night. Much fun. Here's our progress:

I really should be grading papers.

Old, but fun stuff

Last spring, I found some unwashed, batted wool in my basement. I don't remember having unwashed, batted wool, but it was definitely there. I decided to play fun with Easter egg dyes. This was my first attempt at dying anything, and I think it was much fun.

Well, I'm having trouble putting the pictures in the order that I wanted, but I think you can tell the chronology of the event. All wool events seem to end the same way -- with the cat coveting the results. I have no idea what I will do with the yarn, but it was a big hit at the Medieval Fair the library held this summer. The kids tried to guess what I used to get the colors while I gave them hints. Anyway, I'll have to get out the camera to get pics of the new stuff.

Post #1, Attempt #2

I've created my first post, added a picture, crashed and burned. Here goes another try.
I'm afraid to keep typing after the last attempt, but I've got my fingers crossed. The yarn in the picture is a mohair/acrylic blend that was going to be a lovely white sweater with a little bit of open lacework. I started it in the '80's. We decided to rip it out and try something different. My daughter crocheted a beautiful shawl out of some and we decided to dye some purple for a second shawl. So you see, the purple skein has been dyed in Kool Aid. I have to dye about 4 more skeins and then it's off to the crochet aficionado for its new life. Well, I'm going to try to publish this post now, so we'll see what happens.