Friday, June 23, 2006

Color Diet

Despite my best laid plans to stop accumulating yarn, I have managed somehow to come into possession of several more sock yarns. All this winding of skeins into neat little center-pull balls on my nosti has become a bit awkward, so I finally invested in an umbrella swift. Gosh, I wish I had this all along! It makes things so much easier and the whole process smoother. Modeled on my lovely swift is Lynette sock yarn from Ruby Sapphire Yarns, in dark and dusty shades of purple and green. I went a little wild and bought three skeins of sock yarn from Ruby Sapphire. Alex is real purty shades of green, while Angel is a mix of golden browns. Ah, to be drenched in a mist of fine color.....


I also acquired two skeins of sock yarn from It's A Colorful Life, Baby Girl and Cool Ocean. These will make such nice summer socks! For next summer, of course, as I am collecting yarns so much faster than I can knit them. But I have put myself on an official yarn diet. I have decided to partake in the festivities of Stitches Midwest this August, and I am starting to save up for it now. I am looking forward to spending too much and getting beautiful yarns. I will probably be able to make it to August without buying more yarns only by fondling my current stash frequently, letting the waves of color wash over and restore me. Food may fuel the body, but color feeds the soul!

Sunday, June 11, 2006

Yes, I'm finally knitting.....

I am finally spending more time actually knitting rather than buying yarn and books and just reading about knitting!

I have returned to the "Easter" Crusoe sock that did not fit, and have a couple inches of the reknitted foot done on that. It is so painful to frog! Here's proof that I am actually back working on this, my personal albatross of spring:



Also, I am working on the Besotted Scarf, mostly while being driven around town, or while watching movies with my sweetie. I find that it's easy knitting and doesn't take a lot of concentration. I really do not think the yarn I'm using gives enough definition to the cables, but my guy thinks it is just fine and it's his scarf, so I'm prodding ahead. The colors are real nice and it's fairly soft, too. If anyone comments on the somewhat fuzzy Xs and Os, I will simply inform them that it's a semi-Besotted scarf - all the love, only partial public demonstration.

Despite my troubles with Crusoe and fingering sock yarn, my passion for hand knitted socks goes unabated. I joined the Yahoo group For The Love Of Socks and have begun one of the two chosen patterns, the Aran Braid socks. My first attempt was with some beautifully tweedy yarn from Garn Studio, called Silke-Tweed. It is 52% silk and 48% Lambswool, and is a dark oatmeal and cream color. I really liked the idea of doing an aran braid in this yarn, made me think of the British Isles and native knitting traditions and colonialization and all that sort of thing. But as you can see in the first photo, the tweed obliterates the visibility of the braid at this scale. Sigh. I mean, can you even tell there's a braid in there? Really, it's there, has five ribs and everything. Quite lovely in person, if you hold it up to your nose and squint rather hard...
This yarn will resurface in a lace sock pattern at a later date. For now, I am sticking to the pattern but I have switched to perhaps another dubious choice - when will I ever learn? This second photo is Brown Sheep's Cotton Fleece, in Putty. It's sort of splitty for socks (using size 0 dpns to get gaugue) and they will be thicker socks, but I am loving it anyhow, so there! The 80% cotton, 20% wool will breathe nicely I think, and the braid is showing lovely this time. Onward!!