D-Man Birthday Socks Completed!

Well, I finished the socks for Dax's ninth birthday. As I have said before, his birthday is in September, but with the Ravellenics coming up and Tour de Fleece right now and the smattering of baby stuff that's about to happen, I wanted to get a head start.

They are seriously fraternal twins and I'm really glad I had an awesome model for them!

Anyway, I'm glad the heat here is so bad that he didn't want to keep them on. It makes it a lot easier to sneak them into the present bag in my closet to wrap up in two months for his birthday. Here's to hoping his feet don't grow to enormous sizes before then!

(Also, good news, BSGFPB extended the deadline so this project actually qualified for points! Yay!)

Such A Quitter...

So, one of the things I have neglected to really discuss on this blog is the fact that I recently quit smoking. I had my last cigarette on the morning of April 26th, vowing to let that be the only nicotine fix of my 23rd year of life. So far, it has been a success. It hasn't been easy, obviously, but one of the things that really got me through the whole ordeal was spinning.

I am very proud to say that May 26th, while on vacation, I picked up 4 oz of roving and began to spin in celebration, though I wasn't aware of it because I had totally forgotten at the time. It's a good sign when you forget to count how long it's been since you quit, right? Right!

I bought the roving from Lazy Pi Farm. I have spun her fiber before and it is absolutely great and my experience with this Corriedale was no different. It is not as soft as the merino I had been spinning, but that's the nature of the wool. The color is fantastic (hello purple!) and I loved every minute of it.

I went ahead and wound it into a ball and plied from the outside and center, though I think I will try the Andean bracelet or "handy" form of plying next time because I was very frustrated when the two singles would twist around each other as I unwound them from the ball. I think part of that was overspinning, though.  I'm not sure. It's worth a shot, though. The only problem I see with it is you have to finish plying before you can really go anywhere, as you are sort of tied to the spinning wheel at that point.

Anyway, it plied up into 330 yards of 2-ply in a fingering weight yarn, finally! I mostly use sock yarn so finally getting sockweight yarn was just... awesome. I'm so happy! Some of it was actually finer, I'd call it a laceweight, but it plumped up a bit with thwacking so it's all good. I'll probably knit up a tiny shawl with it! Squee! I'm very well aware that I have simply swapped one addiction for another. Don't judge me!

Weekend Meetups

Well, I have had quite the busy weekend regarding fiber!

Saturday

Saturday was a really great day. I met up with the San Antonio Handweavers Guild. They have a meetup every third Saturday of the month starting at noon at Yarnivore. There were quite a few people there, I was very surprised! It was nice to meet new people and learn from them a little. My little spinning wheel was quite a hit and a lot of people thought it was cute and had questions.  I also got quite a bit done, as well! I spun up some of the dyed merino I bought from WishFox Dyeworks. It's probably the only merino I have done well with thus far and I think the spinning is coming up great! I will probably navajo ply it to keep the color changes nice and consistent, since the roving is a bit wild. I would hate to lose the gorgeous colors in the business of plying it. I'd rather try to keep it consistent. Anyway, I bought 5 oz so I'm hoping it will turn out lovely with quite a bit of yardage.

Another great thing is that this particular fiber seller is part of the Phat Fiber group. Apparently, this month each purchase made from the etsy shops of any of the sellers listed gives you a chance in a drawing for a fiber box. Wooo! If you are interested in the details, please check out the thread on the ravelry group. These fiber artists do amazing work so being the nasty enabler that I am gives me warm, fuzzy feeling inside.

Oh! Pssst... speaking of enabling! Yarnivore is now carrying Tosh sock and DK weight, and waiting on the worsted. I would hate to be alone in this dangerous place, you know. :)

Sunday

Today was a local LSG meetup at 2 Rivers Coffee in New Braunfels, TX. It took me forever to get there, and not just because I underestimated the time... but because I got lost. Yes. I, even with the superpowers of a GPS and iPhone, got lost. Horribly. I will say, though, that New Braunfels is hardly the worst place to get lost. The scenery is quite wonderful and it's nice to drive around there, lost or not. Also, I will mention that it is not a horribly big place, so getting lost there is kind of... special. I did eventually figure it out and we met up and had quite a bit of fun! I gave away some fiber to the daughter of one of our local hoars and also traded her some sock yarn for her blankie, which I totally convinced her to do in the first place! She had some great sock yarn for me to add.

Please ignore that purple ball toward the bottom, there. I had meant to add it to her bag and had a brain fart and dropped it into mine on accident, even though I have an entire ball of it. I'll keep it and give it to her when I see her next. When I came home, I totally ignored my sock (the almighty last few inches of it!) and worked on four squares. The blanket is looking less and less scarf-like by the day, it seems.

I took a picture cutting off the area I haven't worked on all month, so that blue square in the top left is where I started off this month. I'm submitting my blankie squares to BSGFPB this month, so I'll probably doctor a picture up at the end to outline the squares from May. I love that big red one. You can't see it too well, but it's actually a lovely gradient yarn starting at a deep fuschia color and going to a red-orange at the top. I like it.

I'm really hating the yellow light in the house. I'm going to have to definitely take pictures outside, probably on the picnic table in the yard. Everything looks so muted and jaundiced it's not even funny.