[knitting] Frankensocks

Finished the socks!

Pattern: Frankensocks

Yarn: Plymouth Happy Feet, green and grey. One skein of each color. Some red for decorating.

Needles: US 2 (2.75 mm)

Notes: My socks are much, much simpler than the original Knitty pattern. Mine are like a pair of stale biscuits and the original Frankensocks are like a 30-layer crepe cake. Night and day. But that's okay. As someone who struggles with socks (love to wear handmade socks, kinda hate making them), I was just happy to finish these.

I had fun stitching the red yarn at the color joins, to make the socks look more "pieced together" and "Frankenstein-y".

The nice thing was, the more uneven and crooked the red stitches, the better it looked.

[knitting] Red Cabled Hat

Pattern: Brambles Beret, medium brim, medium length

Needles: US 4, US 6

Yarn: Malabrigo Merino Worsted, Ravelry Red, used much less than one skein

This is the matching (kind of) hat that I made to go with the mittens from yesterday. 

[knitting] Red Cabled Mittens

I pulled 4 skeins of Malabrigo Merino Worsted from my stash and wound them into balls. The grand plan was to knit a matchy-matchy set of mittens, hat and scarf. I finished the mittens:

Pattern: Eugenia's Mittens (rav link)

Needles: US 7

Yarn: Malabrigo Merino Worsted, Ravelry Red, 60% of one skein

Notes: Good pattern- clear instructions and charted. I opted not to re-created the "mistake" that author made and did three full repeats of the chart instead.

One of the great things about participating in Nerd Wars on Ravelry is that the various challenges they post every month make you think outside of the box. One challenge asked you to use something unusual or non-traditional when crafting a project. This could be making a drop spindle from a CD or knitting something with a couple pencils/chopsticks. I was kind of at a loss... until I saw one of my asian pears. They usually come wrapped in a puffy net sleeve to protect from bruising. Have you ever seen yarn sleeves? They are plastic mesh tubes that hold your yarn together as you use it. My pear-protector is the same thing! 

It worked really well! 

[spinning] Grey Wind

I joined Team Iron Throne in the Nerd Wars tournament on Ravelry. For three months, challenges are posts in various categories (charity, scientific, technical, etc). Team members complete challenges to earn points and if you can tie the project to your team's theme, you earn extra points. There are lots of different teams based on various nerdy interests: video games (Team 1-Up), Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Team Hellmouth), Lord of the Rings (Team Precious). My team is for fans of the Song of Ice and Fire series.

My dissertation (three-month-long) project is to spin 3 pounds of grey wool into a 2-ply worsted weight. 

That's a lot of wool. I bought it so long ago, I can't even remember when- but I know it was at the VT Sheep and Wool when it was still held in Essex Jct.

I am using my Spinner's Control Card to make sure that all my singles are spun the same size:

I plied and washed a small skein to figure out wraps-per-inch:

Now I just have to spin it all. I'm calling the project Grey Wind, because that's the name of Robb Stark's direwolf in the series. In the end, I should have more than enough yarn to make a sweater or even a blanket. Or a big, stuffed direwolf?