On The Fiber Front!
I'm on the first day of a 4-day weekend! Wheeeeeeeee! :-) And now that Christmas has come and gone, here are a few finished objects that had to remain on the QT.
I spun this yarn for my friend, Linda, aka The Chicken Lady :-D Her 
mission to keep chickens in the city is garnering national attention!! Sorry, I digress . . . You might recall that at Stitches Midwest, she gave me a braid of fiber. It was the first wool that my spinning teacher, PatsyZ had me spin. It's Targhee, and I absolutely loved spinning it - in fact, I would very much like to get some more (after June 30th, I 
know :-D). I spun it worsted weight, and although there is a little bit of thick/thin going on, on the whole it was pretty consistent for where I was at the time. I plied it as it was spun - I very much like the "barber pole" effect, and when it is knitted up, it will have a very "tweedy" sort of look in all the colors that really are Linda :-) One of the properties of Targhee is that it is really, really stretchy as well as being very soft (next to the skin soft).
mission to keep chickens in the city is garnering national attention!! Sorry, I digress . . . You might recall that at Stitches Midwest, she gave me a braid of fiber. It was the first wool that my spinning teacher, PatsyZ had me spin. It's Targhee, and I absolutely loved spinning it - in fact, I would very much like to get some more (after June 30th, I 
know :-D). I spun it worsted weight, and although there is a little bit of thick/thin going on, on the whole it was pretty consistent for where I was at the time. I plied it as it was spun - I very much like the "barber pole" effect, and when it is knitted up, it will have a very "tweedy" sort of look in all the colors that really are Linda :-) One of the properties of Targhee is that it is really, really stretchy as well as being very soft (next to the skin soft).One of my non-knitting friends grows beautiful African violets, and (book plug, coming up --> ) in fact, you can pick up her new book, You CAN Grow African Violets: The 
Official Guide Authorized by the African Violet Society of America, Inc., at iUniverse.
Official Guide Authorized by the African Violet Society of America, Inc., at iUniverse. Anyway, she visited me this summer and I dragged her to the Midwest Fiber & Folk Fair, in Crystal Lake, Illinois, where she saw some Trekking XXL, pointed to it and said, "that's beautiful." Since it was the only sock yarn she showed any interest in all day, I figured I had better nab it. Getting it into the bag and paying for it, and then hiding it from her the rest of the weekend was challenging :-D
I did not share her assessment of this yarn - until I starting knitting it up. In the skein, it bore an unfortunate resemblance to . . . um . . . clown barf. Really, it did. But as I started to knit it, it turned into the stunners you see on the right. Clearly, in addition to having a thumb greener than my own, she's a color visionary! So, here are Joyce's socks, modelled on my spiffy new sock blockers from The Loopy Ewe. I love these things!
Here's one last pair of socks to show you. Made of Sockina cotton. I liked how they knitted up - I swear, I had a dress back in the 70's that was that pinky/coral shade, with cream colored lace and dark brown bits of trim. :-D I like how these came out, and I like that I was able to get them to match, unlike the Trekking, above, which I later learned never matches up for anyone.
As part of my personal stash busting challenge, I have joined a knit-along! It's called the Sock a Month 5 KAL. The goal is to knit one pair of socks each month, from January to June. Apparently this is the fifth time time the organizers have done this - hence the "5" in the name. This should be fun!
Point Five Raglan is done but for the sleeve seams and the wonky buttons . . . if anyone knows of a tutorial for those yarn buttons, please point me in the right direction!
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