Regressing

After a solid week of fingering-weight, handspun colorwork*, I felt the need to do something waaaay mindless and straightforward.

Enter toe-up, thick yarn socks, in handspun. Fiber is superwash Corriedale, colorway "Tartan" from Spunky Eclectic. US 5/3.75 mm needles. One sock finished in two short evenings of knitting. Gotta love it**.

* I finished on Saturday afternoon, wrapped it up, and gave it to Himself for his birthday. He was very pleased, and totally unsuspecting. Now I have to find the mental fortitude to weave in all the ends.

** I've also finished the center panel (yay!) and started the border on the SYB, picking up umpteen million stitches around the edge and starting to work in garter stitch. I'll keep going until it's big enough or I get tired of the damn thing.

More! New! Patterns!

Well, not exactly new, but newly available...

First up: Flip

I knit Dev this skirt umpteen years ago (it now barely fits Boo), but then never got her to wear it and/or stand still long enough for pictures. Finally managed that in the summer of 2009. And then managed to work up a pattern for it last week - nothing like four years from object to pattern!

The pattern is written for any weight yarn - you need to knit a good gauge swatch, but then it's a matter of plugging in some numbers (I used my calculator, so don't feel bad if you do too) and knitting around and around and around until it's long enough. I used self-striping sock yarn, but anything would work well.

Second: The Harpswell Vest

My poor Dad. The man celebrated his 70th birthday last spring, so I wanted to knit him something big. Little did I know how slowly handspun colorwork would go. Plus, it was a little busy for him. So I decided to knit him a textured sweater (blue of course!) of my own design. Then I discovered how big it would have to be (I'm looking at you 24 inch arm length). Ehem. So Dad got a vest for Christmas instead of a sweater for his birthday. In any event, he seems to like it.

Same stitch pattern as the Harpswell Pullover (which went to my brother, who has shorter arms thankfully), same classic fit (2-4 inches of ease), but faster to knit because hey, no sleeves!

You can buy both of these patterns from the Pay Patterns page, which also includes loads of other patterns and more details about sizing and suchlike.

If you'll excuse me, I'm going off to finish my Waterloo...

So effing close

It's 8:45 pm. At 4:00 pm this afternoon, I ran out of light grey with 1.5 repeats and a cuff left on sleeve #2. Bugger.
Thankfully I had some singles left from the last spin, so I quickly plied, weighed the teensy amount of yarn, soaked it, threw on some dye and hoped for the best.

It's now dry and ready to go. Here's hoping its enough!

ETA 9 March 2012: I gave up at 11:45 last night and went to bed, but...I've got half a repeat and 20 rows of corrugated ribbing to go. This puppy will be done (at least knitting-wise, I make no promises re weaving in 400 bazillion ends or blocking) for the birthday on Saturday. Hooray!

Exactly

I don't know if it's because the days are getting longer, or the trees are starting to bud out, or because I'm feeling vindicated in my work and fibery pursuits for the first time in a long time, but this recently discovered song (courtesy of Brenda Dayne at Cast-On) is summing up how I'm feeling almost perfectly.

Or exactly, if you prefer...

The conscious realization of being happy is too rare to ignore.

While the cat's away

Yesterday Himself left for a week-long chair building course in Dorset (his Christmas present). I am planning on using this time* to finish the goddamned blankity-blank fracking River Run pullover that I've been working on for more then a year. Because it's his birthday present (please God don't let him pick now to start reading my blog. Kthxbai!) and his birthday is Saturday.

This sweater, while gorgeous beyond all belief, is making me pull my hair out. Because it's taking FOREVER. Nine colors, a 20-something row repeat, and diminishing amounts of handspun, handyed yarn are combining to give me an ulcer. Last night I finished sleeve #1 and promptly celebrated by sticking it in the corner and finishing off the third edge of the sock yarn blanket(now at this stage). The sleeve was five full repeats in total. I am hoping to get one repeat done per night (hahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!) this week and am considering sacrificing one of my children to the All-Powerful Handspinning Gods so that I don't run out of yarn. Because not only will my "schedule" not allow for spinning and dyeing any more, I'm also running out of fiber.

Oy. Thank goodness it's pretty!

* This assumes that the yarn for my sooper sekrit deadline knitting doesn't arrive in the next few days. If it does, Himself will be receiving a sweater with the needles still attached. I'm pretty sure he'll live.

PS - I've finally moved and updated my pattern pages (up there underneath the header) and added the newest pattern - the Southwark Collection (an ebook of my four London-inspired accessories). I've got two more patterns to release this week, so check back for those.