My Pile O' Handspun

My ladybug and I have been happily spinning away together, and I just thought it would be nice to have a group photo of the better quality "fruits" of that labor.

Have I knitted a single thing with my handspun yet? Nope, but I sure plan on it. Maybe I'm a little scared that it won't live up to what I'm invisioning...

Oh well, I have to take the plunge sooner or later...

My First Handspun Yarn

Tra la la! This is my first handspun yarn, spun on my new ladybug spinning wheel which arrived last Monday. I have named my wheel Charlotte, and I love her. My yarn may not be perfect, but it does resemble yarn, so I'm happy. I haven't any idea how much there is or what to do with it, but right now I just want to look at it and pet it. I can see this is going to be a new obsession, and I can't wait to go to The Black Sheep Gathering next weekend to soak in the fibery goodness, watch experienced spinners at work, and stock up on fiber to spin! This is spun from some inexpensive corriedale roving I bought at a LYS. I can't wait to get more practice in!

Perhaps a little forethought next time...

This is my first "non-vanilla" sock. I'm trying 3 new things with this one: broken rib stitch pattern, knit on 2 circs (previously I have used dpns), and an afterthought heel.

We won't even talk about the first frogging incident, which was due to thinking I was too cool to knit a gauge swatch.

Anyhoo, after realizing I was getting 8 stitches per inch, I cast on 68 and happily knit away, the cuff and the leg were without incident. I knit in my waste yarn where I would insert my afterthought heel, and then consulted my beginner sock book to see what was next. "Continue in pattern straight to the toe" it said. Awesome. Feeling quite smug about how neat and non-stripe-disruptive my afterthought heel was going to look and how clever I am for thinking of doing it this way, I knit 8" from the waste yarn and started decreasing for the toe. I have to admit, it looked a bit long, but I didn't dwell on it. Something told me not to close the toe until after I completed the heel. In fact, the more that I thought about it, that heel was probably going to add some length to the foot... yes, it seems so obvious now. Sure enough, after finishing my smug little stripey heel, I tried on my sock and it was a good 2" too long for even my size 10 feet...Suddenly not feeling like quite as much of a sock rock star I practiced my unknitting skills for what I'm sure will not be the last time.

The good news is it fits like a dream, I love it, and I can't wait to show that second sock who is boss!

Sleeves That Go On Forever

Since this is my first sweater, I didn't want to be traumatized by sewing lots of pieces together and this pattern (Knitting Pure & Simple #2911) is fantastic for that. I am also a big fan of the yarn I'm using which is Madelinetosh dk in the Kale colorway. It is so soft and lovely and the color variations are subtle enough to be extremely wearable yet visually dynamic enough to be very yummy to knit up :)
I taught myself a new skill on this project...the magic loop method for the sleeves, I found the dpns the pattern called for annoyingly unwieldy in the size 8 I required to get correct gauge. I can handle sock-sized dpns, big chopstick sized ones... not so much. Since I've got the knitpicks Harmony options set I will never have to buy another set of the larger sized dpns again, now. Yeah, stickin' it to the man!
I was moving so quickly on this sweater until I hit the sleeves. This is a top down sweater, so the sleeves are the last thing that needs to be done. Here I am, 1-1/4 sleeves away from completing my first sweater and I'm blocked. Now that the project is getting all big and more difficult to tote back and forth to work I let the siren call of my new self-striping sock yarn lure me away. Oh well, it's nice to have more than one project on the needles to keep things interesting I guess...and it isn't like I need a sweater right now, the weather is about to warm up, right? Right???