Fair weather spinner

Yesterday the sun was shining, the weather was warm and beautiful, a swarm of children were rampaging in the yard. So guess who came out to enjoy it all? First the beast, then the combs, and finally the drop spindle. We had a lot of fun together, although things were a bit rough for the spindle and she got some bruises, until we moved from the concrete to the grass.

And with the final push from a friendly niddy-noddy, a little beastlet was transformed into this little beauty.



Not-so-technical details: an even mixture of Jacob fleece and vegetable matter, spun in a single and immediately knitted into a square, with the only purpose of seeing if I was able to do it and how it would all come out. I LOVE IT!
It is unbelievably soft and airy.

A sweater from a drop spindle does not seem an insane propositon anymore...
Somebody please stop me now.

Opportunistic blogging

First of all, thank you so much for your very kind comments! Feeling loved is just the best thing ever! If I have not answered you directly, it is only because I have misplaced your email address.

There is so much to say and so little time and space: I am blogging from one of the computer at my school, which luckily lets me load pictures, but it is not set up with all my links, archives etc. So opportunistic blogging it is.

All I have to show you today is my Olympic effort. Of course I knew I should have known better than signing up. And, honestly, I did not mean to. But, with being at the pre-opening party, where everybody was talking about it, and being Italian with strong family links to Torino (hey, I used to go sking in Sestriere when I was little!) and all that, when I read Wendy's post quoting some of my colorful language*, I knew resistance was futile.

My challenge was to knit a pair of socks in those 16 days. I know it does not sound like much, but for me socks usually take months to complete. Well, that may still be the case actually, but at least one was completed within the allotted time. And I am happy and gratified by the whole thing.



It is the 'Embossed leaves' pattern in the winter issue of IK. Do the yarn and color look at all familiar? Why, yes, they are the same of Ms Melanie's recent socks, from the very same batch. Like her, it was my first Koigu time, and I loved it. Definetely the best sock yarn yet, in my very limited experience.

One thing though: these socks are supposed to have a tubular cast on. The pattern refers to the glossary pages of the magazine for the 1x1 rib cast on. And I tried, and I tried and I tried... but no tubular anything came out of those instructions.

I could have done a regular tubular cast on, with waste yarn. However, I knew there was a way to do it without waste yarn. And I was determined to twist my fingers every which way I could to get it right, mostly from memory.

But no luck, eventually I had to give up and produced this.


I have no idea what it is, nor how to reproduce it for the second sock. It will do but it certainly is not tubular, and it could do with being just a little bit more elastic.

* BTW 'big rack' translates something like 'tettona'

Denial is....

Denial is when you think you can keep a blog by writing a post every 3 months.

Denial is when you forget your camera for the one chance in 3 months you have to write that post.

Denial is signing up for the Knitting Olympics when you know you have 2 exams and a move to accomplish during the Olympics. (Still, I did 50% of my project, woohoo!)

Denial is thinking that, even if you only manage to read an average of 3 blog entries per week, plucked here and there, you are still part of the knitting blog community.

No, wait. The last one is wrong. While I happen to be a member at large, I know all my lovely blogging knitting friends are still there for me. And that’s why I can’t bring myself to erase this miserable little blog yet.

Watch out for the possibility of another entry this very week (it’s Spring break, no classes!)

Is that denial or what?