I Must Be A Kitten Because I Love To Play With Yarn

It's been a tough week. I've been diligently editing comic pages, but am so very far away from being complete. In an effort to make it feel like I've made some progress, I've made a giant check list where I get to add lots of check marks. It has helped a bit.
As I've been slogging through the comics, it's become increasingly important to balance the work with play, and play I have. So much so, that I've managed to finish off another woven scarf.

Warp: Doespins sock in Paua. Weft: Verdant Gryphon Mithril in Green Water Snake.

I've also completed my latest pair of vanilla socks. It's amazing how the stitches add up when knitting in the car.

Opal's Der Kleine Prinz in Die Rose Der Kleine Prinzen color way

As a reward, I've cast on a new vanilla sock. This time I'm using the sock blank I bought a few posts back. I've never used a sock blank before, but I'm already addicted. Look how pretty the colors are!

Gale's Art Single Sock Blank in The Big O color way 

At the rate I'm going, I'll have another pair of socks off the needles in no time.

Has anyone else been playing with new-to-you yarn? Is there any I should try?

Almost There

"Almost there" is how I feel about all of my projects. I've put time in to each, but none are quite finished just yet. Still, I'd like to share what is almost done.

I'm nearing the finish line with the Iceland Sweater. I was undecided on how long to make the welts for the body, so after doing around 60 rows of the front, I started on the back. I got a little nervous about the width. The ribbing sucked in so much that I went ahead and blocked it. No need to keep knitting if I'm going to rip it all out again. Luckily it blocked out great. Now I just need to finish the length of it before weaving in the many ends and attaching the buttons.

I tucked all the ends into the sweater when taking the picture, but there are quite a number of ends to weave in

I've been putting quite a bit of time into my new woven scarf. Connor has started playing Fallout 4, so I've been using that as my weaving time.... you know, when I haven't stolen the controller to play a little myself. (It's such a small part of the game, but I'm obsessed with collecting the magazines and displaying them on the rack at our home base.)
I'm nearing the end of the scarf and I've already learned what I would do a bit differently next time, but all in all it is a good first project. The only problem I've really run across is how to show weaving progress. It sort of looks the same as you weave.... so here is the big roll of scarf that I've woven.

It looks so small all rolled up, but I'm pretty sure I'm going to have a long scarf when I'm done

The socks are all moving along, too. The Haleakala socks (top) got put aside again because I forgot how complicated the gusset is. The test sock (right) is almost at the toe. My plain vanilla pair (bottom) is also almost at the toe. I wish some of these were second socks, but alas, they are all the first in the pair. I'm hoping that once I get one sock done, the match will knit itself.

Of course all these projects are just my yarn-related ones. I've been continuing on with my comic and figuring out how to best scan and process them for online and print. (I have no current plans to print them, but if I ever changed my mind, I don't want to rescan 160+ pages.) I've also taken a step away from the embroidery sachet/ quilt project. It all became a bit too much to maintain.

Who else has a bunch of "almost there" projects? If you love them all, how do you choose which one to work on next?

Being Still

It has been slow going here at the Bear Ears household. After getting better from one illness, another set in. And as I started to recover again, my poor computer developed a crack in its screen. (I was told it was flaw, not something I had done. I knew that. I baby the thing and the crack appeared while sitting quietly watching a video.) All of this occurred right before leaving for a trip we had been planning for a few months. Knowing that there was no way to go on the trip unless I got better, I dropped everything and became still. I'd forgotten how important it is to have times of silence and thoughtfulness. I had run myself down much lower than I had realized. Not just physically, but emotionally and creatively as well. Being sick was a blessing in disguise. 

While being more still, I also was able to finish up a design that has been in the works for the past two years. (Knitting counts as still, right?) It is off with the test knitters at the moment. It is everything I wanted it to be and it only took many months of hair pulling to get it right.

As with everything else that has slowed down, so has the sock knitting. Two months ago I was putting the toe into my Pucker sock (left) and working on the heel of the striped sock (right). I've hardly made it down the leg of either second sock.

I do have a little bit of happy yarn news though... well happy for me. While we were gone on our trip, a new skein of yarn appeared in my mailbox. I purchased it in March and waited to have it dyed. It is the Monopoly Money color way from Desert Vista Dyeworks. It is pretty and I love it. It seems like the kind of future socks that would be great to wear at a game night.

I'm a bit more motivated to get a sock done so that I can play with my new yarn. Mmmm.... new yarn.

We're All Mad In Here Redux

Could it be? I have a FO? After being stalled on all sorts of projects and finding motivation in none, I decided that every day I was going to knit one more stripe in these socks and eventually they would finish themselves. 

The heels match, like usual. I don't care if they laugh at knit night. I'm sure they are just jealous of my self-striping heel matching prowess. 

I've knit these socks before. We're All Mad In Here color way was the first Canon Hand Dyes I ever knit with. Unfortunately they faded. 

The sock on the left is the faded one. It almost looks like it is in shadows compared with the new one on the right.

Here is a close up of the damage. I've since been re-fixing all of my socks to help them resist fading. These were far from the only pair to fade, but because they had been neon, the contrast was much more stark. Luckily the old socks won't go to waste. Mum has found that she not only likes hand knit socks, she likes them even better when they've been worn in. Apparently they are more cozy. That works for me.

The sock on the left is in the Oscar base. The sock on the right is ion the Charles base.

Of course finishing my on-the-go pair of socks meant I could start a new pair. I didn't realized I had been so starved of a new project until I started knitting  this one. I blinked and I'm already at the heel.
The yarn is from Opal's now discontinued Little Prince series, the color is The Geographer, and there is a mildly embarrassing story as to why it needs to be knit now. I bought the skein back in November of 2013. After that I carted it around everywhere I went. I think it even came with me to New Zealand in 2014. Wei Siew saw it and was enchanted, so I found a skein at Stitches 2015 and sent to her. The embarrassing part is that she knit up her socks with her far newer skein before I got around to mine. So I'm knitting them now.

Progress has been steady on my other WIPs. I got more yarn for the shawl I'm designing. I had to unravel a few rows so I could blend the new skein in better. It took some time, but the shawl is now ready to be knit again. The Pucker sock is growing slowly but surely. I am ready to put in the toe on the first sock. (Finally!) I just need some quiet time to figure it out. The toe is a little different than my usual one because the mosaic pattern is 72 stitches around and I need it to be 64 stitches early on. I'm glad I have my Geographer socks to keep me sane while I work on the other two projects that need brain power.
There is one more thing in that photograph that I want to share and it also has a little story. I was reading Alicia's blog and saw a delightful bag. (See the second picture down.) I lusted, but decided I didn't want to buy a kit I wasn't interested in for the bag. The same day while reading Monica's blog that I saw a second bag and lusted over it. (See the third picture down.) After a bit more research I realized that those bags were both made by Jenna Rose. It was going to be a birthday present, but the bag accidentally got sent to our old address. We tried to get it back, but it was long gone. (I hope whoever stole it likes it a whole bunch.) So we ordered a second one. It became more of an anniversary present. It is my new favorite. It sits open really well and, well, I love that Jenna dyes and screen prints the fabric herself.

So that is what is going on in my knitting life. I'm still painting and learning all I can. It is exciting to have a new area in which to be creative.