Lost my Bloggin' Mojo!

Doesn't it seem as thought I've lost my blogging mojo? I haven't been around a whole lot lately; I guess I've been busy but I don't remember with what. I know I've been reading more than usual lately, and that's taken away from my knitting time (a fair trade, I think). I've also had a serious bout of startitis lately. Observe:



These are the "Poseidon" socks by the Tsock Tsarina. I bought this kit at the 2006 New York State Sheep and Wool Fest (aka Rhinebeck!), and decided that I really should at least try to use some of the yarn I bought at 2006 before attending 2007. I cast on for these in September. The pattern is well-written and Lisa goes to great lenghts to explain the techniques used, but dang! this is the most difficult pattern I've ever knit. I'm about 6 rows into the dolphins on the leg of the 1st sock, and because every row is different, it's as intense as knitting lace (i.e. I can't watch TV while I knit, I can't talk to anyone while I knit, I can't think about anything but the stitches I'm stitching while I knit). As far as the yarn is concerned, well, it's heavenly. It's Jennifer's Flock Sock from ValCalcar Acres and it has a lot of elasticity to it and a nice stitch definition. I picked up a skein in "Copper Pennies" at this year's Rhinebeck (well, ZMrK picked it up for me!) which I just realized I FORGOT TO PHOTOGRAPH! It's in with my stash, um, somewhere. Looks like I have to go stash diving again to take pictures of it, which will mean being inspired to cast on for yet another project, oh woe is me. . .

But I have other projects to show you!



These will be ZMrK's socks. I'm making basketweave rib socks in Spunky Eclectic's sock yarn "Diet Coke". This yarn is much thinner than I expected -- the label calls it "sport" and suggests a needle size of 3-4, and I'm using a size 1. I think it may be mislabeled, but it looks as though I will have enough (I hope!) for these socks, and we know it's superwash, since we put the swatch through the washer and dryer and it came out okay. That's all that matters, right?!



This is why I should blog more often. I took the above photo on November 18th, and today (Black Friday, which, by the way, no I did not go out shopping and only went out to get the mail and scurried back in and haven't been warm since!) I felted (fulled, for those of you who are purists) it. This was a really simple pattern, and I'll tell you about it when I post the pictures of it (which won't be until it is dry, as it's been molded into shape now).

I have a few FOs that I don't have photos of: the Feather and Fan scarf by Wendy Johnson, and Foliage by Emilee Mooney. They're both really fun, easy knits, and Foliage is a really good excuse to work with Malabrigo, which is like crack for your fingers. It had been about a year since I had used any, and I forgot how amazing it feels. I get the same sensation as I get from licking the bowl of brownie batter clean -- it's that good.

I need to move on before I get all yarngastic on y'all.

I did some dyeing a few weeks ago! I also made a big fuckin' mess doing so, but I've cleaned it all up. I had some old yarn that I had purchased in a big lot at the beginning of my knitting career, and I was at a loss as to what to do with it. I had swatched some of it to see if I could make a felted cat bed out of it, but the sumbitch wouldn't felt! So it sat there for a while, and I realized that my problem with it was that I hated the color. So I got to soaking up the four skeins of it, spread out the newspapers and plastic wrap, and got out the Wiltons. A couple of canisters of sky blue mixed with a tad of violet yielded this:



Do you notice anything there? When I put the skeins in to steam, I did two at a time, with one on top and one on the bottom. The two skeins to the left are the two that were on the top. The two skeins on the right are the two that were on the bottom. The two skeins on the right are much more vivid, and have a pool of really intense blue at what was probably the bottom section.

See?



(Dude, you can, like, click on the photos and go into Flickr, choose "all sizes" to select the largest size if you really want to see these LARGE.)

Here's some of the darker:



Here's some of the lighter:



And, just to show you what did NOT inspire me one bit, a kept a couple of yards of the yarn in it's original color.



Believe me, the camera does it justice. It looks like heathered dishwater.

My problem now is what to do with the four skeins that are slightly off in color. Should I just use two each as separate projects, or should I use all four and just alternate skeins every few rows so it won't look so unmatched? There's a shawl in one of the two issues of Crochet Today that I was thinking of using it for -- it's a shell pattern that just could look nice in various shades of blue. Of course, I can barely crochet so there's that to think about. The other problem is that the yarn is not the softest, so I don't want anything that I would wear close to bare skin. I was tempted to donate it to the thrift but my inner cheapass always wants to give something a chance to be something else. I think I'll find the person project for this yarn.

I had six skeins of the same brand of yarn in a dusty pink that I want to overdye, but I don't think I'll do the spray-bottle-and-steam method on it. I want all of the colors to come out fairly even, and am thinking of a deep dark red. I don't know if I'll be able to do it with the tools I have, so I may have to find an enamel roasting pan to "cook" 'em in.

Well, that's this week's post. Hopefully before the weekend ends I'll have photos of my scarf and two most recent hats to post. I'll have to catch Ken doing something cute as well, like biting the shit out of dad's feet.