Kitting fairy gift and new skill unlocked

 A knitting fairy enabled me to make some purchases on knitpicks (I have many knitting friends that help me out). I got a lace knitting kit and two other fixed circulars of the wooden type that I always wanted to try. I didn't really need more yarn but had to find something and saw something that looked nice and bought it.

New needles for either lace or socks, most likely socks. The Options set can only be used with those tips because they are sized that way but that's all right. The yellow wood is the Sunstruck style and the other is Painted wood, size 2 and 1 respectively
 

This is what I thought I was getting. Nothing too dark, nice multi colors and would make a nice pair of socks.

This is what I got. That is not a Happy Valley, that is a Dark Valley at sunset. I just emailed the company with my complaint, they're usually pretty good on customer service as I told them I would be happy to send them an image of what I received. That picture is on my white desk with an overhead light and an open window with natural light coming in. Can't say it's dark because of lighting.

In other news, I am almost done with the second orange sock. Only six more rows until I change to two rows of orange and then two of multi and then the cuff yay! I tried to resist starting another project but wanted to try doing two socks at a time. The video I found made it look relatively straightforward even for toe up. I just so happened to have ordered that lace knit kit that has a 40" cable.

Test project with the sparkly sock yarn, got the muscle memory figured out then cut that loose and remembered the wonderful light colored 'rainbow sherbet' yarn that was already caked with both ends available. A bit fiddly with the yarn ends all over the place but I managed to make a tiny center pull ball from the inside yarn so I could free up the outside end. There's a video about making a center pull yarn, and although it's educational, a bit dicey using this small a yarn but it worked. I just tucked it into the center making sure the yarn was pulling free.

Will update on that once I have more of the toe done, but also want to see about a not very lacy but cool stitch for the top of the foot and leg. Even as exciting as that yarn is visually, still want to dress it up a bit, which brings me to another happy acquisition. A library card to check out knitting books!

Not the book I wanted but the only one my local library had, I've already marked pages of stitches I'm considering. Even with this, I'm still whining about not having my three stitch encyclopedias with three pages of different rib patterns.

I'll figure something out, but it's not going to be anything too complicated due to having two different socks going on at the same time and I don't like anything bulky in my shoe part. 

So that's my knitting update, really excited about doing two socks at a time as that will cut the finish time in half hopefully.

 

 

Much has happened but not much progress

 Still working on the second sock, started another for me and no progress on the shawls. I am attempting to pair up various yarns for 'franken socks' for the rest of the year. First up is a blue yellow yarn that reminds me of either Van Gogh's 'Starry Night' or Dr. Who. I had to size down the number of stitches to start since I'm working on size 2 needles and a thicker yarn.

I got a joking request for a red 'fashion' scarf from someone and then went looking for red yarn. I only found one ball of Comfy fingering in a cranberry red (not enough to do much with) and then the other Tofutsies in the pink/orangey color. I found a scarf pattern that was relatively easy and by the time I got to this point, I looked at the work and all I could see was red marbled meat. I can't unsee it. I'm going to have to put off that project for a while and maybe find a ball of something closer to the end of summer to whip something up.

 

I finally decided to tackle untangling this ball last night. I thought it was Kroy Socks (FX? I think due to the glints of mylar thread in it) definitely a 'copper' colorway. I've searched online but all the listings for that yarn don't list it having a 'metallic' thread in it. Unless it's also a nylon fiber.

I had both ends started because I happened to find both before. So on the left is close to what it was originally and what I had to deal with on the right.That may look like a mess but I was lucky enough to have picked up the end that was from the center and hit the untangled middle of the skein. That helped speed things along greatly and at that point I was about a half hour in of winding it. I started around 10 pm and finished at 11:45. Yes folks, took me almost two hours to get it untangled. But that will be another pair of socks probably for someone else as I'm not so sure about that color for me. It's definitely a stripe and still think it's Kroy Socks but yet again it's likely so old no one has it anymore even listed. I have two balls which is my thinking ahead that was needed for socks.  Those will be fun to make though.

So that's done, I was working on both socks this morning, alternating between sessions on an ipad game. It's April and need to get my knitting projects for Christmas moving along a bit more briskly.

Oh! I discovered on Pinterest a series of lace designs from a 'company' named Gannet Studio. She names them from a random word generator and sometimes they have absolutely no relation to what the stitch looks like.

 This one is called 'Coffee'. None of her stitch patterns are downloadable, she's got them on her blog and a Patreon account so getting them to a pdf format is involved. 

Those larger eyelet holes are from a double YO and then there's a knit 3 together stitch. So kind of ingenious but also kind of complicated. She last updated her blog post in 2018 so not sure if she's doing them anymore even.

This one is called 'Swags' and is derivative of the previous one. I mean, who could  not use more lace patterns right? But on the other hand, it's only half the idea for a shawl or scarf or even a sweater pattern.

She's got dozens and dozens of patterns listed so there's bound to be at least one that's relatively simple for using on a scarf.

So those are my discoveries and accomplishments for knitting. Blankets and shawls are put aside for now.