The Frog Pond

My birthday socks.

I decided to frog them. Not all the way; just back into the heel flap. I'm so glad I did! It was a horror to pull out several inches of labored knitting, but they fit and look so much better. I can't tell you how much I love this yarn. I know it's on the pricey side, but it was definitely worth it; it's just fun to knit! And I love the texture. Can't wait to finish them, and get them on my feet.

Notice anything missing? The tags. Oh man, those tags were driving me nuts. It had gotten to the point that while I love the socks, love the yarn, love love love knitting with it, I kept procrastinating. The tags made it so not fun to knit. So I took them out. I think I'll start another project and do the tags differently so they aren't annoying. I like the idea of the project, but honestly, if it becomes "unfun" I just won't do it at all.

And when I do... here's the new way to show them off. Are you ready for this?

Clear Clogs.

And miracle of miracles; in my ginormous size.

And even better? They're comfortable. I'm quite impressed. I really thought they wouldn't fit and they'd be stiff and hard to walk in, but they aren't; and they don't hurt my knee. Wow.

So now I need more handmade socks....

I finished spinning the merino I was spinning on Dagmar (the repaired Norwegian wheel, named after my husband's grandmother, to whom it belonged.) It's quite lovely. A bit overspun as I'm still tweaking how to spin on a double drive wheel. I have a hard time adjusting the take up at first, but it comes along eventually. I want to dye it shades of blue, I think. There's a shock! It's very soft and it's laceweight. I hope I have enough of it to do something with! That's my biggest problem in spinning; I don't ever spin enough of the same fiber the same way to actually knit anything. I'm working on that, I hope.

I've got some CVM that I got raw and have scoured (and scoured and scoured and scoured.... it was the filthiest wool I've ever seen!) The fiber itself under all the dirt is lovely heather gray and very crimpy and soft. I'm going to try to spin it from the lock. There's a full pound, perhaps even two, so I should be able to spin enough to have a project. I've only scoured about an ounce though. It took FIVE washings and after the fourth I finally had to sit down and break apart the clumps at the end of the locks one by one. It's still not as clean as I'd like. I'd almost give up on it, except that this is my very first "sheep to something" fleece, and I really want to complete it. And as I said, the fiber itself is soft and gorgeous, so it will be worth the work. I'm going to take a bit of a different tack with it though; skirt and de-clump first, then scour in the machine a few ounces at a time, with LOTS of Dawn. I've read blogs where people would use literally cups of Dawn, which always seemed a bit excessive to me; however do you rinse out that much detergent? So I usually just give a good squirt or two. I think this fleece may justify a lot more than I'm used to. Listen to me saying "I'm used to" like I do this all the time... sheesh. I've scoured about four ounces total. Go ahead, laugh. I'm laughing too.