Sock It To Summer 2014

This summer I have decided to participate in “Sock It To Summer” (Sits). Sits is where you knit as many completed pairs of socks between June 1 and August 31. That’s three months to focus on socks. Socks are such great, wonderful little projects that when it was suggested of at Knot A Podcast I jumped.

You can find the official thread over at the Knot A Podcast Ravelry group. There’s two threads. The thread where you post only your finished projects and then the chatter thread. Also, if you don’t listen to the Knot A Podcast podcast, you totally should. She’s great.

As for the socks I’m going to be working on? Well, I have plans for a couple of projects. But I have two pairs that are on the needles that I’m throwing in the ring. You’re allowed to work on already existing projects if they’re less than 75% compete. Well, since neither of these projects is that far along, I’m going to be throwing them into the pool.

The first are my Mottled Egg socks.

These have been on the needles since February and I’ve only just turned the heel on the first sock! I need to get a move on!

The other pair isn’t actually a pattern per se, but I am going to be using the Fish Lips Kiss Heel.

They’re only a toe, and that toe has been on the needles for a while but those are the two pairs I’m going to be focusing on. If I manage to finish both pairs of socks before the end of August, I’m going to try to knit one of the many other sock patterns I’ve been dying to knit.

This should be fun!

42

If you can’t tell from the title of this blog post, I cast on a Hitchhiker, a pattern by Martina Behm yesterday.

The yarn I’m using is dyed by A Hundred Ravens in their Aesir base. The colorway is Starry Night. This is actually a sample for them to show off their yarn and their wonderful dying. I love love love their yarn (and I’m not saying that just because I’m knitting stuff for them). It’s soft and squishy (all of their bases are), and the colors are bright and just work so wonderfully.

I took advantage of the nice weather we’ve been having yesterday and decided to wind the yarn outside.

It didn’t work quite as well as I had hoped. My ball winder didn’t want to stay attached to the railing and so it was almost all the way off by the time I wound both skeins.

I may or may not get 42 points out of the yarn, but considering how quickly this is knitting up, it won’t take long to find out!

Here’s my project page.

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Now, I know that quite a few of you are wondering how things went at graduation.

Well, I spend a good chunk of my time during the ceremony, knitting.

Because, what else was I going to do sitting there?

Bill Nye was an awesome speaker. You can watch his talk if you’re interested. They posted it (and graduation) online.

I got the case for my diploma (the actual one is coming in the mail).

Yes, I had a rather cheesy grin on my face.

And then I had a party for friends and family in the afternoon.

Mom and I

I got super lucky on the weather (It rained that morning) and it ended up being a great day.

Now I should get back to the knitting! (And job searching)

PS: If you’re wondering about my degree, it’s a Bachelor of the Arts in English – Creative Writing.

12 Hours and Counting

The outfit has been chosen.

Food has been ordered and picked up (including cake).

Decorations have been gathered

Schedule of the day has been planned.

Music playlist is almost complete.

And my Facebook cover photo has been changed to this:

What is this all leading up to?

Graduation of course! I need to be at the arena by 8:15AM tomorrow morning at the latest. Graduation starts at 9AM. It’ll probably go roughly around 3 hours. I’m hoping to sneak knitting and my gameboy onto the floor so that I have something to do while I’m sitting there for all that time!

Afterwards is a small party for family and friends and then it’ll be official. Even though I’ve technically been done school since December, but now I’ll have attended graduation and it’ll officially be over.

It’s been a long road. A very long road. 8 years from when I started called in the fall of 2006 until now. I can certainly see how I’ve changed and matured and this journey has been a long one, but I don’t regret it in the least.

NH Sheep & Wool Recap

The festival was a blast. I took well over 100 pictures, I got to pet sheep, and angora bunnies, and alpaca, and angora goats. Even got to see an alpaca get sheared!

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to get into any of the workshops or demonstrations but I still had a ton of fun anyways.

As you can see, there was, well, a lot to see. So much fiber, not just in yarn from, but as roving or even raw fleeces. A couple of times I had to go wash my hands from the sheer amount of lanolin on some of the fleeces that I was able to touch. Really, there was just so much going on it’s hard to give an accurate play-by-play of the day. I think this selection of photo’s speak for themselves. There was a lot going on.

While I didn’t buy any yarn I did come home with some things.

A commemorative tote bag (because I have enough t-shirts).

8oz of pure alpaca fiber. This isn’t roving, but it’s been combed and I can pull it apart to spin from.

A lightweight spindle. I have heavier ones, but a nice lightweight one is a great addition to my collection.

Two braids from Mad Color.  The one on the left is called ‘Morpho’ and the one on the right is called ‘Life is Short and You are Hot’. They’re very yummy and I can’t wait to start spinning them.

And lastly, something called a ‘wristaff’. Basically you slip the cord through the center of a yarn cake and you can knit from it while it hangs from your write. I think it’s the coolest thing!

So, overall, a great day, and I had a blast. I’m totally going to go next year.

Sheep & Wool

Tomorrow, bright and early (well, kind of early), my mom, a friend, and I are all going up to the NH Sheep & Wool Festival. I can’t wait! This is going to be my first time going since I really got into crafting and knitting again in college. I’m almost itching with anticipation.

My camera battery is charging as I type and I have a 32GB memory card in there. Excessive? Maybe. Am I still going to use it? Probably. I’m just so excited!

A few of the ladies from my LYS are going to be there too so maybe I’ll run into them, it’ll certainly be interesting!

On the actual knitting front, I’m still working on that test-knit which is, soon, going to be done as a mystery KAL, so no pictures allowed! I will say that I screwed up (lost track of rows) and had to rip back about 40 rows of knitting. Fun times. Totally my mistake though and as soon as I realized something was wrong, I was able to fix it easily. Too bad I didn’t catch it sooner!

Also, I know I’ve mentioned that I spin on here. Not that I spin a lot. And I use a drop spindle, but it’s been 2 years since I learned how and only today, TODAY! that I learned how to braid roving. It’s just the coolest thing.

See that braid right there? I braided that! It’s probably the coolest trick I’ve picked up in the last few months. So much better for storing the roving! I actually realized that I had no idea how to braid roving when I was watching a podcast earlier today and she was talking about braiding her roving. Cue the Google search! It’s much easier than I thought it was, though keeping the cats out of it while I braided was something else entirely.

Expect a really long post and a return to regular blogging after the festival!