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I realized in doing my WIP Roundup the other day that there may be a distinct reason I am bored with my current knitting. It’s all brown. All of it! Brown, beige, tan, maybe some grey. Depressing! So to make my knitting not so boring, I first finished up some of the boring beige items.

The French Press Slippers that were a gift for my friend Carmen are finally done! In March, 4 months too late. Or maybe they are 6 months early! Either way, I finally get to send them out to her in the coming week. The felting was a bit uneven on one of the toes, but it will even out with wear and washing. The buttons are from my random button stash, I am a bit sad to be letting them go as I really like them, but I still have one or two left from the set so maybe I need to make my own slippers!

I also finished up those Noro striped socks I was working on for what seemed like ages. I think these took a lot longer than they should of as they were my travel knitting project. For three weeks I actually drove to work instead of taking the train so they got no action.

Now that they are complete I thought it would be good to add some colour to my knitting life, so I grabbed the most colourful sock yarn I could find for my new train knitting project. Behold, the Zauberball.

The gradual transition on this yarn with such bright colours is similar to Noro, but the yarn is extremely evenly spun and the colours do not mix at all. It’s like the OCD version or Noro, which is kind of great. I love the colour change so much that I am attempting to come up with a way to not mess it up while turning the heel. I have a few ideas, but am unsure how they will turn out in knitting actuality.

I am going to head over to knitting group in an hour so hopefully I can bounce my throughts off of them and see if they think it will work. If it does, I will DEFINITELY share it. If it doesn’t, I will probably just hide my shame and pretend like these socks never existed.

Lucky me, I have a bad head cold that is turning into a sinus infection! This would normally be a great excuse to get a load of knitting done, however I have been working from home as it’s month end and I can’t really afford to take an actual sick day.

This weekend, before I was sick, I took some time to photograph my WIP’s that I have not really owned up to yet. It’s a good idea when you are trying to get things done to start on the oldest first, those items just hanging out there will feel so nice to finish up. So here they are, the parade of projects hanging around in my knitting bin.

This is a throw, made out of Knitpicks Spinnaker. I am doing a plain ol’ garter stitch on the bias, but I am thinking that I need to change it up. Firstly, I don’t think it will be big enough and I can’t get more of this yarn (unless someone out there wants to sell me some?), so I might turn this into a random crochet medallian throw. That way I could always supplement with medallians made out of other types of yarn. Thoughts?

French Press Felted Slippers! I just need to sew the strap on and paint the grips. Maybe a half hour of work and I can call these ones done. They will be so cute when they’re finished up, so what am I waiting for? To make it worse, these are actually a Christmas Gift for a friend of mine. Sorry Carmen!

Taking a picture of these has actually made me want to finish them up. Although, when I start on them again I am sure I will quickly remember how long all those twisted stitches take! This is Entangled Stitches by Julia Mueller. She makes some GORGEOUS gloves. These are also a gift, but they are Christmas 2010 so I am not behind but actually ahead!

And this, this is Cloverleaf Farms Merino/Cultivated Silk blend. I have about 300 yards from 2.oz of fibre, navajo plied. It looks so foresty and shiney! I can’t wait to spin up the other colourway I have of this roving, which reminds me of fall leaves. I am sure they will be perfect companion hanks for a special project.

The productivity continues apace! For some reason I have a fire lit under my ass to get stuff done. What a nice change from wallowing in my stash hate and not feeling like actually knitting.

I have finished the alpaca/silk yarn that was on my wheel. It is soft. Ridiculously soft.

It’s so soft I wish you could touch the screen. I’ve always read that you need to spin alpaca more loosely in order for it to maintain it’s softness and it’s seemed to work here. I am certain it has something to do with the fibre being in a bump and not roving as well. It just seemed to spin like butter. My favourite part might be the loft this yarn has. It’s so lucious, I am thinking a next-to-the-skin lace scarf. I should have enough as this big boy hank is 300 yards of fingering weight.

All I seem to spin is fingering weight? I need to do something about that. Although, the project on my wheel now is probably going to end up being fingering weight after I’ve navajo plied it. No pictures yet, but as a hint it reminds me of a forest.

Speaking of nature-like items, guess what else is fully complete and blocked?

Yes, it’s my Elements Hat. I love love love it. The fit is a bit non-traditional as the ear flaps are more meant as head shaping to cover as much of my face as possible (it gets COLD in New England) and I was debating on making a liner at some point so it is slightly loose in case I really get some motivation. I do love it without the liner though.

Can you see why I’ve called it “Elements”? It was inspired by British Columbia, which I sadly miss. My next trip back home has been booked for September though, I can’t wait to see everyone!

So let’s hope the productivity continues. I have two patterns to write up and post on here, LOADS more fibre to spin, and a few UFO’s to finish up.

There are times in life when you say something that you just KNOW is going to bite you in the ass. Times like, “Oh, traffic isn’t bad at all”. Or, “Gee, looks like I am going to have loads of extra yarn for this project”. Or, in my case, “My internet is fixed and working awesome”. I was asking for trouble.

I have had a long and tangled past with internet service providers and this past week has been no exception. Being without it FOR NEARLY A WEEK GOOD LORD I WANTED TO DIE was really hard. But the technician eventually made it here, climbed a really crooked pole, and made innanets work.

In the interim, I was productive! My spinning of the fibre stash is actually going quite well. Uhhhh… damnit. Please remind me not to say things like that.

So far, I’ve cleaned off the 1 lb 4 oz of Alpaca/Merino Superwash roving that was hogging my Kromski.

This ended up being about 1222 yards of sport weight yarn. I have to admit that I was hoping more for worsted to make a cable knit sweater out of, but what can you do. Yes, it’s a little overplied. For some reason I have not ever really liked cable knits in loosely spun alpaca, so I thought I should try over plying it to see if I will get more stitch definition. I have no idea what gave me that idea and maybe I shouldn’t have tried it on this much yarn. I hope it worked!

I also spun up a Grafton Fibers batt I picked up at either Rhinebeck or New Hampshire Sheep and Wool. The colours were gorgeous, so I wanted to keep those highlighted. It’s corriedale, spun thick and thin then plied with a strand of quilting thread. It ended up being about 150 yards.

I really do love those damn colours.

This is some alpaca mixed with a strand of green silk fibres. I picked it up straight from it’s home farm outside of Toronto! I had such a great time at that farm, it’s really nice to spin this up and think about the minimal processing involved. I stepped on the grass that was eaten and turned into this hair!

It’s actually plied now, but I took these pictures before my spinning session this evening. You’ll see the finished yarn next time.

So it’s okay if my internet hates me because my wheel loves me. Good little wheel. Now to try and give my Journey Wheel some love. I was trying it out the other day and it sounds like a Mac truck. I may need to slip out West and see if the Bosworth’s can tune it up for me.

The past couple days have been an exercise in torture for me. I get migraines about once a month (uhh… *cough*) and for some reason this month was exceptionally horrible. My migraine lasted about three days, off and on, in combination with chronic headache. Today is the first day I feel like a human again. Although I still have some awesome looking alien veins on my temples. They’re a fashion statement, I swear!

I haven’t been very productive due to the aforementioned foray into the pits of hell, but I did manage to take a few quick snaps of the project I recently added a button to.

Yep, it’s a neck cowl! When I bought this yarn it was for hoarding purposes. I saw it, thought, “Oh pretty!”, then bought it. I am glad I managed to make something useful out of it as there is nothing worse that having a bunch of random hanks of pretty yarn in your stash with nothing to knit out of them. Not that I would know anything about that!

This picture shows the stitch a bit better. For some reason I really love this stitch with this yarn. It’s one of those few times where I think that it couldn’t really be any better of a match.

So, should I even bother to make a pattern for this or is it too simple?

Another knitting project is on the go, I’m using some lopi and making a helmet style hat. It’s inspired by my home back in Western Canada. I can’t wait to have this complete - it’s rolling at the top so it’s a lot closer to be done than it looks in this shot.

Now this is a pattern I think I will need to share.

As for the spinning, I have managed to get some sporadically done over the past few days. I would guess there is about 2.5 ounces left to do up until I have the third bobbin done and can start plying. Because I am getting SO CLOSE to being done I am hoping it will spur me on to plying this weekend.

Speaking of, hope you all have a good one filled with lots of fibre-y loving!