Lethargic

I am not in the mood for much these days. News of the economy and my personal state of affairs are dragging me down. I am not really happy with a few of the projects I finished and am reconsidering them as gift items. Not a problem with the projects themselves, but maybe my choices of yarn. As it turns out, I sent them anyway, and the giftees will have to deal with them.

The top one is bamboo, which would have made a better scarf than a cowl. I love the buttons I found, though. The second one is from my first hand-spun. The fiber is from Creatively Dyed and it is Sea Wool purchased while at Rhinebeck this fall.

I did add the buttons to my BSJ and made some thumbless mittens on a string to finish off the gift ensemble. I changed my mind about doing booties, since the baby will be born in January and will be in footed onsies for the most part. Come on baby boy Johnson.....I am now ready for you!

On Black Friday( the day after Thanksgiving), I went over to Joann's to see if I could get into some trouble and to get buttons for several projects. I ended up with sock yarn for 4 pairs of socks in mid weight for a total of about $30. The yarn is Patons Kroy socks, jacquards in four different colors. Not that there was any fear of running out of socks to knit, but now I have built my stash even further. I started a pair in the summer moss color

with my new book: 2-at-a-time SOCKS by Melissa Morgan Oakes which I purchased from Knitpicks to conquer the technique. It works! I am now working my way down to the toes and it is going well now. At first it was a bit fiddly, until I got the hang of it, and I can see both socks progressing very well. I used my basic plain pattern and had to adapt the technique to my 56 stitch pattern, but it wasn't too difficult since I have made enough socks now to understand the basic architecture of socks. My only major frustration is that the sequence of stripes on the two balls are wound opposite from each other. When doing two socks at once, I only found this out after several inches had been knit on each. Next time, I will rewind both balls before knitting so this doesn't happen again. I let it go this time.......

Now I will have unmatched but coordinated socks. Not ideal but these socks will be for me.