Things that are dull:

1. Endless stockinette in black fingering-weight cotton.

2. Blogging about endless stockinette in black fingering-weight cotton.

I’m slowly phylloing my way to a completed sweater, but ugh! So much stockinette! I’m really trying to finish this one before I leave for Baltimore on Friday. There is one sleeve remaining, then the sweater gets a bath and a date with our dryer. My fingers will be crossed the whole time as I hope and pray that my row gauge really does shrink from 9 sts/inch to 11, as my swatch said it would. I’ve been doubting this the entire time I’ve knit the sweater, but swatches don’t lie, right? A side affect of the change in row gauge is that I get to knit the sweater 20% more than my desired length, which adds to the fun of endless, black, soul-sucking stockinette.

I did get a ton of knitting done over the weekend in the car to and from Austin! Our goal was to hit the Texas wine trail for some wine tasting, which was surprisingly tasty. We also celebrated Staci’s milestone birthday, had a tasty gospel brunch with Sarah (praise jesus for migas!), and visited with an old friend of Rob’s. Fun!

I’m endlessly amused by Texas’ love for, well, Texas, so I had to snap a photo of this as we left our hotel:

Um, maybe I kind of sort of want a Texas wafflemaker now. We’ll see how much money I end up spending on yarn this weekend.

I’ve been spinning like crazy lately! Knitting: meh. Spinning: whee! I’ve been practicing making a smooshy two ply yarn, with varied results.

I love Krista’s yarns and fiber. I have two more braids of her fiber in the stash, and they’re the prettiest things around!

I became very used to spinning really thin yarn when I made the Funky Carolina sock yarn, so this is practice in spinning something thicker. I did pretty well with this - it’s worsted weightish. And pretty. That paw is Silver, making her entrance. I can’t take photos of yarn without the kittehs getting involved.

So when I spin, I have a 50/50 chance of producing crap. This is crap. The fiber is great, more Pigeonroof Studios, but the spinning is awful. I tried to spin the singles tightly so that it would look extra smooshy when I plied it, and the singles had little corkscrews in them. I figured the coils would go away when I plied it (when some twist is removed from the singles), but they did not. Yuck.

This is the February shipment of the Hello Yarn fiber club. BFL is like buttah. I heart it greatly.

I think I’ve mastered the art of two plies, and I’m ready to move on to something else. Maybe adding a ply? Spinning a soft single? I bought a Spin Off magazine last week, and it’s full of cool techniques!

There’s also been some knitting - I picked up the Phyllo Yoked Pullover again. I’m going to MDSW in a couple of weeks (yay!), and I thought I could maybe finish this in time to wear in the cool MD weather. When Blackie isn’t sleeping on it, of course. I’m about halfway finished with the waist increases and then I’ve got both sleeves to knit. Can our brave knitter conquer miles of stockinette in fingering weight yarn? Stay tuned!

Blog, I’ve been neglecting you again. I blame freaking Lost - Rob and I are working our way through seasons 1-3, which always trumps internet time. I’m about four projects behind on updates (if you count handspun), so here’s a little two-for-one sock action.

Pattern: Leyburn Socks
Yarn: Lisa Souza Sock!, the wool/nylon blend one

I’m in a bit of a knitting funk these days, and the only thing I can manage to finish is socks. So socks it is! I’ve had this yarn in my stash forever, because I’ve been stumped as to what to make with it. I really believe that slip-stitch patterns are the perfect thing for variegated yarn. I’ve wanted to knit the Leyburn pattern for a while, too (I swatched it in some Koigu last year), and this is the perfect marriage of yarn and pattern!

I followed the pattern very loosely, as I paired the stitch pattern with a Widdershins-esque toe-up heel flap. My heel turn is a bit different from the Widdershins one, though - for some reason Widdershins heel turn is half the depth of a normal top-down heel flap. I also worked a Magic Cast On for the first time, and it was like magic! Much better than dealing with a short-row toe.

I changed around the Leyburn stitch counts, too - the foot is 34 instep stitches and 31 sole stitches, and leg was 64 stitches. I should have increased some stitches around the heel flap (or worked a longer flap), since the floats are a bit stretched out there.

This was the first time that I’ve used Lisa Souza yarns. I love the non-pooling dye job, but the yarn felt very nylony when I was knitting with it. She also sells a 100% merino sock yarn, which my pampered fingers demand, apparently. I also love the generous 4 ounce put up - I have a sizeable ball of yarn leftover.

I wrote this entire post without mentioning the obvious fraternal nature of the socks, which is really a testament to my diminishing anal retentiveness. It’s part of the beauty of handpainted yarns, right?

I’m in the minority here, but I really prefer knitting socks top-down! I hate, hate, hate working the sewn bindoff for toe-up socks, and I hate even more undoing the sewn bindoff because it’s too tight. Knitting socks toe-up also requires a bit more math before you start, since you need to know your heel depth and the number of stitches before the heel turn to figure out how many gusset increases that must be worked. I probably won’t be working any more toe-up socks, unless I’m really, really afraid of running out of yarn.

In keeping with the sock-a-month theme, the socks above were March’s pair, and these are April’s.

Pattern: None - just a 64 stitch top-down stockinette sock with an afterthought heel
Yarn: My handspun! 3 ply (navajo plied) from some Funky Carolina superwash merino in the Missed colorway

Handspun socks! There’s not much to say about these, except that I spun the yarn! I can’t believe that these turned out so well. The handspun was mostly fingering weight (I used a US 1.5 needle and got 8 stitches/inch), but was a bit thicker for the second sock’s cuff. I think that the thick portion was where I started out spinning, and the uber thin portion was toward the end. I can say that spinning worsted weight yarn goes much, much faster than a 3 ply sock yarn!

My first afterthought heel! I chose the afterthought heel so that the stripes wouldn’t be interrupted, and I heart it. Normal short-row heels don’t fit my massive instep very well, so I worked a few even rounds before decreases to give me some extra ease in that area. The instep stitches are still stretched out, so I’ll try more even rounds next time.

The right sock has very short stripes, so I ended up cutting the yarn in a couple of places on the left sock to keep the stripes from getting too out of control. I also knit the first sock on the short side, since I was afraid of running out of yarn, and I extended it an inch after the second sock was complete. I must have missed this lesson in Knitting 101, but if you pick out the cast on edge to frog the top ribbing, you’ll have to pick out every. single. stitch. No frogging from the cast on edge. I ended up snipping a stitch and cutting off the ribbing, knitting an extra inch, and then grafting the sock back together. I can’t even tell where the graft is, so yay!