How much progress one can make by just
knitting for an hour or two. Here are the socks again—back on 2
circ's, not 4. Second gusset completed, and with 2 inches of the foot knit. Another inch and
half, and it will be time to start the toe shaping. There is still a
lot of finishing to do—One sock still needs the back seam sewn, and
both socks have a fair number of ends to be woven in. But that will
be quick work on Sunday at a local knitting group.
I am already thinking about which sock
to do next. Right now, I my thoughts go to a very simple generic
pair of a self striping wool. With a bit of fanciness at the cast on
edge, and nothing but self patterning to keep it interesting. My
secrets sock --my goal was to do one regular (public) pair and one
secret pair a month--(and obviously I am behind schedule!) will be a
simple pair too!
Later today, I will be hand painting
the remaining white wool--each skein is just under 40g--almost enough to make a pair of socks (for me). While I work, I will be making a photo essay about my process.
It's really not that hard to do hand painted skeins—if you do them
one skein at a time, and don't need to produce a number of skeins
with near identical results--as you would for a commercial (even a small scale commercial) enterprise.
I am not interested in doing hand
painting or custom dye work on any sort of scale and selling the
results—I am just doing it for me. It's another way to be creative
(and frugal!). I get the best of both worlds—basic yarn (Paton's
Kroy) bought at less than full price, hand painted to make one of
kind art yarn. I have had “failures” (that is not gotten the
desired results, exactly) but none of my failures have been real
fails. The results are always workable—and sometimes really quite
lovely—even if not the colors or effects I was not exactly what I was going for.
My other project for today (knitting
will be put off till tonight) will be some sewing. All this week at
odd times, I have been ripping (frogging?) seams on clothes. Some
are silks (worthwhile to alter!) some are just cottons (but colors I
really like), and now its time to take in the seams, add new elastic
to the waist bands and make them into smaller clothing. Size 3X is
becoming size 1X or in some cases, size L. Later this spring, I will
head to my favorite thrift store, and see if I can find some new (to
me) clothes, too.
And some of the way to big, and just
not worth altering clothes will be donated at the same time.
