Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Sock slump

I'm trying to finish a pair of socks for DP, and they just seem to be taking forever. I only have the legs left to do, but 74 stitches around on size 0 feels like running on a treadmill in front of a window - I never actually get anywhere!

I have a few other things lined up for when I finally finish these - I bought a mitten pattern which I'll hopefully make for my dad in time for Christmas, and I bought two skeins of sock yarn that I haven't tried yet: Malabrigo and Sundara. I found someone destashing the Sundara and jumped on it :) I'm not sure what patterns I'm going to do, but my plan is to make something up to go with the colors (green and red). I'm also planning on joining another LotR swap, so I may be spinning up some laceweight and inventing another shawl in the next few months. Basically, I'll be exploding after finishing these stockinette albatrosses.

That's the news!

Monday, April 12, 2010

Another one down

I finished another Liesl! Well...almost :) I still have to choose a button and sew it on, but it's finished blocking and everything. I love it - it feels just like a hug. I should probably learn to use my blog to keep track of progress, rather than just showing the finished projects, but it is what it is. I did take pictures along the way...

Fiber: Crown Mountain Farms superwash merino in Light My Fire.

cfm light my fire roving

I'm not even sure why I bought this a year ago, but it turned out to be just what I wanted. I ended up buying another 8 oz to round it out. I turned it into this:

light my fire 2

and this:

light my fire

Which became this, in short order:

flame yoke

and then this:

flame body

I ran out of Light My Fire halfway through the arms and had to improvise. I had some beautiful red cormo locks I was going to use, but when I opened up the bag...I saw a bug!!! I'm not sure what kind of beetle it was, but I chucked out the cormo and kept looking. I found the wool/mohair blend I'd spun up after the Sheep in the City festival last year:

wool mohair both skeins

I decided it went well enough, and plunged forward. Using it allowed me to make long sleeves (which I actually prefer to bracelet length), and I did one partial repeat at the body hem with the yarn doubled, just to pull everything together.

Here's a blocking pic:

flame blocking natural

I hope to get a better picture - maybe with me wearing it - once I have the button on and DP is awake to take it.

I'm so happy with this!