Be Like Spring

I am sitting outside right now writing this blog post, enjoying a beautiful day. The sun is out and I am soaking up as much Vitamin D as possible. on days like today it is so hard not to go out and clean up all the gardens, but I have to be patient and remind myself that it is only February. Dead leaves and hollow sticks are home to sleeping bug friends and they aren’t ready to wake up yet. While this year’s pollinators are resting, new life is peeking up through last year’s debris.

The weather right now is doing that thing it always does in the Spring – being as indecisive as possible to keep everybody on their toes. It is sunny, it is rainy, it is windy, it is snowy, it is 65 degrees, it is 15 degrees… I am very ready for some consistency, but I think early Spring makes the sunny days more precious because they are fleeting. Every day I do my rounds to see what is popping out of the ground. The daffodils are just starting to bloom at our elevation and if the cold weather stays away, the forsythia and weeping cherries won’t be far behind.

Last year we had a hard frost right as the flower buds were about to open and every last one froze. We were really looking forward to seeing all of our bushes in full bloom and ended up getting nothing. I am hoping that this year will be different and we will get to see a spectacular show.

I am taking my cue from nature this week and being very scatterbrained when it comes to my crafting. For so many years I have always focused on a single project at a time because I mostly knit samples. I admit it is nice to not worry about deadlines and have any number of projects going at once just because I can. Progress will happen naturally and it is not a race to the finish line, so I pick up whatever I feel like working on in the moment.

These dang cats keep getting in the way of my photos (I am so not a cat person), but this pillow cover is steadily growing. The stitching itself is so mindless it is a great project to work on after a long day of work when I just need to zone out for a while. The photo that came with the kit is very skewed in color, so these quadrants are turning out to be quite a bit more vibrant than I anticipated. It almost feels like a different project as I work it up because the contrast is much more jarring in real life vs the sample photo. I had started to think this unfinished project was going to follow me to the grave, but if I keep working on it a bit at a time I will have a new pillow before summer! Or maybe the cats will…

Though the sun is finally warm again, as soon as it goes behind the mountains the temperature quickly drops and our evenings/mornings are still pretty chilly. This has me reaching for fingerless mittens while I work, but I lost my only pair several months ago and they haven’t turned up yet. I am just as shocked as you are that I only had one pair of fingerless mitts, but they lasted me for 11 years and became very dependable until they scurried off in the middle of the night, so it never occurred to me that I should knit myself more. I dug around in my stash and found some more handspun yarn so I can make myself a new pair and hope to get started soon.

This fiber is a wool/alpaca blend that my dear friend Kate gave me back in 2011 I believe. I know I spun it in 2011 or 2012 because I distinctly remember spinning it in my apartment when I lived in Pittsburgh. I got my wheel in August 2011 and moved away from Pittsburgh in August 2012 after grad school, so it has to have been some time in there. I love that the fiber was a gift because it means I will think of Kate every time I wear the finished mitts. The fiber was carded rather than combed, so it lent itself well to being woolen-spun, resulting in a lofty, fuzzy yarn. Perfect for the warmth I am after with this project.

I also wound the yarn I intend to use for the mittens I shared with you in my last post. I haven’t done any swatching yet, but you can’t tell me these colors aren’t gorgeous together! Now the question is, which project do I work on first?

Naturally, because we’re being like Spring right now, the answer is neither. We’re working on socks instead.

This new pair is for Kyle, and I am challenging myself to make socks in something other than plain stockinette or ribbing. I am not branching out too far here, but this simple stitch pattern is a nice change of pace. The hand-dyed nature of the yarn is obscuring the pattern quite a bit, but so far I like how it is looking. I didn’t have to look any further than my bookshelf for a simple stitch pattern that would work for these socks.

These two books right here, Sensational Knitted Socks and More Sensational Knitted Socks by Charlene Schurch, are all you need for a lifetime of sock knitting. My first several pairs of socks were straight out of the original and these books are a great masterclass in sock construction and modification. They are so informative and have certainly earned a permanent place on my bookshelf. In fact, I have had to purchase new copies of each over the years because I lent them out to people interested in learning how to make socks and never got them back. I don’t blame anybody for hanging on to them. If you have never made socks before and would like a place to start, I highly recommend these books. They may actually be out of print now, but it is still easy to find used copies at a very reasonable price.

Of course, if I have new socks on the needles it can only mean one thing.

I finished my last pair! This yarn is from Polka Dot Sheep Yarns in the “One Yarn” colorway, which was custom-dyed for The Yarnery in St. Paul. I love how the colors spiraled around the leg. The 80/20 blend of merino/nylon makes for soft, but hard-wearing socks. While this colorway is sold out, there are plenty more beautiful colors to choose from. (When will I learn not to look?)

My spinning projects haven’t grown very much since my last post, but I am already thinking ahead to my next project. I shared that I recently acquired four new drop spindles. Each one is so unique that I was having a hard time deciding which to spin on first, so I decided that I am going to spin on all four of them. I am going to take this 100g braid of beautiful polwarth/silk from Sweetgeorgia and spin 25g on each of the four new spindles, then ply them together to create a 4-ply yarn.

I ordered this braid on a whim from WEBS (had to get that free shipping) and I have to tell you, I barely glanced at it before adding it to my cart and I thought it was a blend of grays. Someone in the comments is going to have to tell me what color this really is because I know I’m wrong. The colorway is “Stormchaser”, so I’m thinking moody blues? Regardless, it is going to be a fun spinning project and this way I get to test out each of the spindles in quick succession. The real experiment will be to see if I can get close to the same thickness on each of my spindles to make a consistent 4-ply without too much waste. I will keep you updated!

Until next time, stay creative.