Adventures in FOs and UFOs

I had a very fun evening last night. I got together with my friend Victoria. She recently went to this really cool knitting retreat up in Inverness and came back with all kinds of neat ideas and projects. One of them was knitting two toe-up socks at one time on circular needles. I know how to knit socks on circulars. I know how to knit toe-ups. And though I've never done it before, I just knew I could figure out how to do two socks at once on circs. Am I the only one this happens to?Have you ever had a knitter put a bug in your ear? You know, when they are all enthusiastic and excited about something and suddenly it sounds like such an irresistable idea and you just have to dive in and try it? Well, that's what happened to me. Victoria, in her very earnest, quiet, yet cheerful manner got me all worked up over trying this. Somehow, we decided that we just HAD to learn how to do this before the cruise. That way I could impress them all. You know, wow them with my rare talents and abilities. So we got together at her really beautiful house and set out. It was hard going at the beginning. We did a figure 8 cast on, which in my opinion is no fun, even when you're working up one sock. But I prefer it because I'm too lazy to dig out waste yarn and a crochet hook. Somehow we managed to get past the cast-on and each got to about 36 stitches per sock.


Here we are at her dining room table casting on. Believe me when I tell you her house looks like it belongs in Architectural Digest. Both she and her home are very beautiful in a classic, classy way and she has all kinds of really neat things in there.
Victoria and I met when I was working at the yarn store. She came in one day and I felt like I had known her forever. Do you ever have that happen?


Here's the beginning of my socks in Koigu. Look at the cool basket of eggs she has. Those eggs are made out of ceramic! But you would swear they are real eggs. They are the weight and feel of real, dyed Easter eggs. I love that chicken basket they are in. Her house is full of cool things like that.










I'm pretty sure that my hat phase is all petered out. Here is the elusive Kai modeling another hat that I made for my friend Beth. You can see I still have to tuck in the ends. It is made from Regia sock yarn, 2x2 rib until I began the decreases. I made this hat twice because it came out too wide and shallow the first time.

Here is Emi modeling a hat that I made for her. I actually made two of these, one for her and one for her friend Manon, who could be her twin. They like to dress alike. Since I was getting tired of hats, I took a pattern from Barbara Walker and plugged it in. It's called a "purl twist knot." It made a nice texture on the hat, I thought.




In my quest to use up more of my lifetime supply of kitchen cotton, I got on to this towel-topper idea.
Here they are, side by side. One crocheted and one knit. The knit one took about three hours, the crochet one less than an hour.

I prefer the knit one. It has more substance to it. This is the crochet version.
I bought more towels at K-mart, thinking they'd make cute gifts. Seriously, what is wrong with me? My craft stash has a life of it's own.








Last of all, you may or may not remember this. It just wasn't coming out the way I wanted it to, so I frogged it. I knew I wanted it to be a shawl. I knew that I wanted to mix the yarns (mohair and wool, dyed the same color, it's Plymouth Outback.)
With my Barbara Walker Treasury firmly in hand, I perused and imagined and finally settled on the "berried in a basket" pattern. It will be a stole with a wide mohair border (about 6") on each end. There are four rows of "berry" repeats in wool with every fifth row in mohair. I am really liking it on so many levels. Fun to knit. I like the way it drapes. And then there is the anxiety factor. Will I have enough yarn to complete it? Livin' dangerously. That's me.