Tuesday, August 30, 2005

Socks and Mittens

I did finish one more of the pairs of socks that have been on included in my project list, and I now remember why they have been unfinished for over a year - I hated working with the yarn. It is K1C2 Frosting, and I bought it on sale after I realized that there was a pattern in IK for some crew-style socks knitted with it. Nasty to knit with, it is 75/25% cotton/nylon, and it is nubbly like Fixation, but not soft like Fixation. They softened up a little with washing, but I think I'm going to try running them through the dryer, too and then see what they feel like. I do like the colors, though, but I have about 90% of the ball of the light color left, and am hoping to use it up for something. Oh, and the yarn unravels like a shot, as soon as you cut it. A real pain to weave in, and I wonder how well it will stay woven.
And here's a shot of the current project - Mittens with lice! I don't know if these are officially able to be called lice, but that's what they look like to me. I like the pattern, one of Claudia's new ones, written for 1 skein of Lamb's Pride and a small amount of a contrasting color (she suggests Lush, which would be nice and toasty warm because of the angora content). I used pencil roving, some Columbia oatmeal-y color that I had around, and the yarn is from a raffle at my spinning guild's Christmas party meeting. I'm not a big user of Lamb's Pride, but I like this dark royal blue color, and I like the mittens. The first is done already, but I'm not going to show it until I can show both, this is just to show that I am actually getting some knitting done.
So, completed mittens later this week, probably, and some spinning from the demo'ing that I will be participating in on Thursday at the Columbia County, NY Fair. It's a real old-fashioned rural county fair, just like the ones I went to growing up, and I'm looking forward to it.