All Horseshoe, All The Time

The Horseshoe (side note: I type Horshoe every. single. time. and then I have to correct) socks have been relegated to the Car Project, and since I'm not in a car very much lately (except when I'm driving, and I haven't mastered the whole Knit While I Drive thing yet), I haven't made much progress.

I'd kind of like to wear these to SAFF, and in my normal world, I could finish the foot of a sock (even a lace sock) in an evening. But I've been distracted and busy lately, so I can't guarantee that I'll get these done before Tuesday.

I'm using hand-dyed yarn, which is notoriously variable, but I still didn't expect this much difference between the tone of one half of the skein and the other- note how green the finished sock is, and how purple the one in progress. Interesting.

And what, you may ask, is this Distraction? Well other than working on my YA, and getting ready for SAFF (I still have a little bit of class example knitting to do), this has done the trick:

The KAL Triangle Shawl (btw: welcome all who are K-ingAL! Lots of new people tuning in- I hope you stick around for the rest of the blather. And possible prizes...) is distraction heaven. It's coming along very well, though this is the *quick section*- with every 16 rows, we add 20 sts total, so pretty soon, rows are going to take quite a bit longer to finish. The lace pattern looks every bit as pretty in this version as it did in the hats and the socks.

It's a very simple lace pattern, which will show up nicely after blocking (and it would show up better now if I wasn't using such dark yarn). I love how the edges are going to scallop- it's going to be very pretty.

Have any of you cast on? If so, send me a pic and I'll post it.

Who you gonna call? Stashbusters!

I ain't afraid of no yarn...

Sorry, I'm a little punchy- much to do today (including writing chapter of the YA I'm working on), and much to do tomorrow, before we take off Wednesday for a week in SoCal. I'll blog the trip, of course.

But in the meantime, I'm maintaining my vow to buy no yarn or fiber until I make a dent in what I already own. To wit:

This yarn became

These socks, which are

heavy boot socks for winter, which is coming, today's high temps and sticky air  and *enhanced* tornado watch notwithstanding. I had to try a couple of times to get the right stitch count and gauge- I ended up using size 6 needles and 40 sts. The socks didn't eat up all of the yarn, however. I still had enough left to knit

most of this hat. The lighter stripes on the crown came from a pair of thinner handspun yarns that I held together.

So now I have 2 more partial balls of yarn to use up. But I'm gaining on it, I tell you. Gaining.

Spring and Socks and Good-Bye Noah Bennett

It took a good long time arriving, but spring is finally here. New growth is everywhere.

They don't call them Cottonwood for nothin'. The air is full of flying cotton this morning. All of the sidewalks and roadsides look like newly drifted snow.

I'm so glad that the flood didn't kill the little Sumac trees down in the park. They're so pretty in the fall- we get so little red foliage, that I would be sad to lose them. You can see how high the water got by the debris left behind (the creek is a good 20' from this spot now).

And this is my current road sock. I love the sort of Camo look it has. This is a Fortissima Colori Socka Color yarn- It's from the Mexiko Country Colors line, and the colorway is #14.  Though the numbers don't match, this looks to be Madagascar. I actually have no idea where I bought this yarn- maybe it just magically appeared in my stash.

In other news- I am so disappointed that Heroes has been cancelled. I was sadly aware that it was never going to regain that Season 1 Awsome, but I thought it had recovered well enough to continue on. I'm going to miss The Petrellis. I do hope they give us some sort of closure on the series- a final episode or two, just to tie things up a bit.

Side Note: I am having a terrible time with the formatting here lately- if I add the pictures after I write the text, the pictures won't stay where I put them (the order and location changes every time I add another pic). If I upload the pics first, then the text automatically centers, and I can't get it to align left. I hope the bug gets worked out soon. In the meantime, it's more important that the pics stay where I put them, so please pardon the centered text. sigh.