I know I posted yesterday but....

 Many things happened in 24 hours. Some good, some bad, some sad.

First off the green socks are done!

Sad news is, they are too narrow for my feet and legs so they are going to my daughter. I will have to remember next time that I either need more stitches around or looser gauge going up a needle size. I cast on those socks on April 28. Nine months to make a pair of socks!!! Now if you take out the wait time after I broke two needles it's only about 6 months. But still, that is a ridiculous amount of time for one pair of socks. Here's hoping the next pair work up faster.

I was looking at the sort of cake that the Neon Nights had turned into and was frustrated that the ball winder didn't like winding it. I then tried to figure out what was different about my situation because so many other people have been able to cake that type of yarn. I then saw one of my previous yarns I had caked and it was just fine.

I then realized it wasn't the yarn, it was the swift, there is no brake system on the swift so it was very uneven tension. I grabbed the ball, pulled from the center and successfully caked the Neon Nights. Too late for the green yarn as I'm almost finished with the hat now. Oh that pink/green chunky is going to be used in the Irish Hiking Scarf.

Now for the bad news/good news: ball winder mishap.

I pulled the winder out to wind the blue/purple Hawthorne yarn into two cakes. Successfully weighed and caked the first half, cut and started on the second one. Not sure what was going on but I had put the winder away then decided I wanted to cake the second half better. In that action I dropped the winder on the floor about three feet. Not good. I thought it was handling funny then saw that the yarn was not winding correctly. The gears had been knocked out of alignment. It took me a good hour to disassemble the top part and see what I could do. I eventually managed to bend that grey cowling part back enough and get the large gear seated again so it was aligned with the post gear. I was not sure if it worked right until I started winding again. 

Success! I felt like wonder woman! I have tools, I have knowledge, I have opposable thumbs and used them all together to fix a problem! I was sure that it was toast but then my ocd and curiosity kicked in wanting to fix a problem. I now know where my son gets his drive for problem solving. That yarn will be used (hopefully) in a pair of fingerless gloves for my sweetie. Since we have similar size hands it will be easy to size as I go.

So yay meee! Small note, I am now doing a little trick for a center pull cake that another knitter pointed out. With a removable spindle in the middle, I unlatch it with a twist, lay the yarn end across the opening, screw in the spindle again and it holds the end for a center pull. When I first got it I was taping it and that never really worked well. I don't even use that top notch anymore. Might try that though with the new method.

That's the updates for now. Socks, hats, gloves, scarf projects all on the needles.

Endless ribbing...

 I have decided to bind off the green socks. The ribbing is getting to be very monotonous and very long so will have some tiny balls of that yarn left and add it to my 'frankenstock' yarn. If I had kept going on the staggered cable I would only now be changing to the rib section. Picture of them finished for next time as the bind off is only half done.

I was remembering how much fun I had knitting the 'Irish Hiking Scarf' and decided to try that again, so rifled through my mostly acrylic yarn. I pouted that KP sent me a small ball of the Wool of the Andes in the exact color that would be perfect for it and moved on. I saw this acrylic large ball of aran/chunky yarn that I caked a while back because it was a mess. I then saw how neat that was and looked at the AFW semi ball and wondered what happened. If I can cake that larger yarn...what the heck. I figured it out, my winder only has issues with winding from a swift with no even tension. Others have caked the yarn just fine so I grabbed the center pull end and voila! Perfectly caked yarn. Wish I had figured that out with the green before I started on it.

I decided to start the decreases on the hat and then realized it would be another situation of more yarn leftover than reasonable. Luckily I had only done about 6 rows and ripped that back and continued on with the 2x4 ribbing. Just have to be patient and rotate through other projects but I'm already beyond where I had started the decreases so it's getting close to the end. 

Cycling through projects is actually good for your hands, just like having different branches in a bird cage so they exercise the foot muscles gripping different diameter perches like in nature. So ....

that's my reasoning for starting another project and I'm sticking to it.

Lots of progress, much wow.

 I have three projects that I am rotating through and trying to do at least two rounds every time I pick one up. Sometimes I only do one round of the hat because it goes so much faster but you know how it is getting caught up in the motions and then discover you passed your row marker ten stitches ago. Any progress is better than none.

Yesterday and today. Almost double the distance in a short time. I love using worsted weight yarn on a small project. The colors are also fantastic but by the time I get to the top of the crown it will mostly be the greens and almost cammo looking. That's all good, my son is tall so the blues showing up where people can see them is perfect.

The two sock pairs. Green ones still have a long way to go and am getting a bit tired of the 2x2 rib. I have decided on a pattern for the Sheepicorn socks and it's going to be cute if I can pull it off. 

The foot top is going to be Seersucker as it's the only stitch that is fairly flat and yet kind of looks like sheep wool (already started on it with about an inch of plain for the toe). I was going to do something like irish moss or seed stitch on the sole but then decided it would be too lumpy.

This stitch pattern is my basis for the leg section. I've actually knitted this scarf years ago and it turned out great. I would still have it if my daughter hadn't left it at a friends house at Lake Tahoe. It's a 3x6 cable that is the best representation of a unicorn horn, right? Get it? Get it? Sheepicorn? I may leave out the column of knit stitch in between so the cable show better. Still deciding on whether to do just a pair of cables on the sides or this all the way around. Leaning toward cables all the way up.  The dicey part is merging the Seersucker into this on the top of the foot. I have to be very patient and hold the Seersucker all the way until I'm above the ankle line and then start the cables. So Seersucker for at least two inches above the ankle line for sure all the way around. 

Can't wait to see how that all works out! Might have them done by October at this rate.

Half step back three forward

 I let the hanks hang for a few minutes because I was impatient of course. But I did let them relax out of the twist at least. I then caked them as best I could. My winder does not like heavy yarn at all.

I had to wind to a point and then take it off and hand ball the rest. You remember my cramped quarters and my winding set up. The skeins were fantastic and didn't tangle at all, I was so careful opening them up. 

For the record I balled them yesterday Jan 12 and started knitting that night. I initially cast on the 104 stitches that the pattern called for and got to the end of the round and in the process of switching needle tips from the 8 to the 7 I looked and one end of the cable had come off six stitches. Crap. Okay take it all off and be more careful when I switch next time.

Okay so got that restarted and (the lighting is not the best due to the overhead light reflection) then  I realized that it was going to be waaayyy too loose.. Sigh. 

So I gave up on the idea of the citrus hat and decided to go with just a 2x2 rib all the way up on the size 7's. Cast on with the 8's and carefully changed to the 7's after doing one round just to make sure the edge was going to stretch and now, after almost twenty four hours..about two inches is done. I would say that about six hours of actual work on it. One advantage to working with worsted weight, and especially a hat is it works up very quickly. If I were still riding the bus this hat would be done in a week. One hour commute twice a day five days a week and 45 minute commute two days a week..yeah would have them both done before summer.

Needless to say I got the toe increases done on the Sheepicorn socks and put that aside to start the hat. I'm really loving the colors on this and by the time I get to the crown it's going to be mostly greens but it will still be pretty. The colors are swirling around the hat you can see sort of in the picture. I'm loving the texture on the yarn as well. It's not as tight as other yarns, almost has a roving feel to it but it's wonderfully soft Merino. I was afraid to do a gauge swatch because as it was with having to rip it back twice the yarn would catch on itself 'pilling' if you will when you pull on a chain stitch and the 'halo' of the yarn gets caught up in the next loop.

I'm already contemplating getting a DK weight for fingerless gloves or half finger gloves, depending on how ambitious I am. I'd love to get the semi solid purple and make a pair of fingerless gloves for Jon (my SO). So many plans so little time and money.
 

Happy New Year! Happy New Yarn!

 I hope whoever is reading this other than me has plans for yarn and projects for the year. I am planning on finishing two hats and two pairs of socks by the end of the year. Will see what happens. I tried to promise myself to work on the UFO's in bags but those are all bigger projects with charts that really need about two hours to dedicate figuring out where I am in the pattern and then doing at least one row. Right. On with new projects instead!

Have just been plugging along on the socks, got the replacement needles for the green socks so those are now on the ribbing, which I started too soon. Oh well, they may be for me anyway so I don't mind.

I had some money gifted to me for Christmas and tried to be frugal with the extras after the important non-knitting things were paid for. I got the replacement needles and splurged on two skeins of worsted weight yarn from Arcane Fibreworks. YAY!

But before that arrived I couldn't help it and cast on for the next pair of socks. For timing I cast on Jan 5 for these socks. So far I love the way the yarn is working up, it's nice and bouncy, the colors aren't pooling since it's a speckle and they keep my interest when a new color pops up. I decided on using the 'Sheepicorn' yarn because I wanted something light colored to work with for a change. The green socks are fine but the confetti dots on white called to me so now I'm almost done with the toe increases and my new yarn arrived!

I asked my son what colors from the Arcane website he wanted for a hat, he picked out the green one which is, 'Till Death Do Us Part' (on the right) and his friend/roommate picked out 'Neon Nights' on the left. They picked out two other choices but I went with these due to the other colors being a bit darker and will be using the 'Citrus Hat' pattern. Nice easy wide rib pattern so it will show off the colors the best. 

I haven't worked with worsted weight yarn in ages so this seems really thick to me, but I have the needles set aside already for the first hat. I'll be posting pictures of each stage along the way because the colors really are very much like the photos on the webpage. I'm very happy with them and looking forward to seeing how the colors work up in the hats.

Other than that, I figured out how to work around the new layout for Blogger, slightly different method of shifting the photos but it's working out. When there's progress I'll post but when there's nothing exciting happening not really worth posting.

May your yarn never tangle and your gauge always be right.