Quarterly Updates and Yarn Goodies

Quarterly Update:

Back when I started the blog I gave you all a little list of WIP's, to do's, etc etc on the yarn front. I keep track of all the stuff I have planned/started in a little excel sheet. Well, I felt like I was making ABSOLUTELY no progress, and Lily suggested that I give little updates on occasion to prove to myself/others that things really were getting done, even though it didn't feel like it.

So when we started, if you recall, there were approximately 40 things on the list, which wasn't really very accurate as I forgot several projects/planned things, but there you have it. Of those 40-ish things, 20 were WIP's. Which was a little bit overwhelming. Since January, I have finished 12 items from that list. YAY!

As of April 1st there are 43 items on the list. 17 of these are WIPs...and only 2 of them are new. Proving that a lot of those finished items were rather spur-of-the moment cast on projects, but what's a knitter to do, really? If inspiration hits, you'll go with it.

There are now only 5 blankets on the list. That's huge progress if you consider the time it takes to finish a blanket.

You'll be getting another update around July 1st.

In other news.....
Zach's Hockey socks are done done done! :) They make me very happy. I never realized how much larger his feet were than mine until seeing it in sock form...hmmm. But look, aren't they neat!

I'm wearing them right now, as my toes got cold and they were the handiest thing at the time. They look a little like some patriotic used condoms...Mostly because they're twice the size my feet are. (mens 10 vs mens 4) But anyways. I used up the whole skein of Lorna's Laces Shepherd Worsted. I used my little drug scale (okay fine its a food scale, but I use it for yarn, and it measures in drug like increments, and my friend accused me of being a coke-head for having a scale to measure small amounts) to divide the skein in half, exactly. Then I knit on each sock until I was out of yarn! They're quite lovely, if I do say so myself.

In keeping with Socks-a-palooza April, I then went digging in the closet to find the second pair of socks I ever started. (Just for a little background, the first two pairs of socks I've started, I've never finished. They were educational for making toes, thats about as far as they've gotten.) These socks are also for Zach. I was just going to lay them on top of the pair I just finished for size purposes, but they looked like this:

No matter how I squished, pinned, or manipulated the little boogers, they didn't want to lay in any other way than something similar to a yarmulke. Or a weird flat ellipse thingie. Or whatever. I got really mad at them, and ripped them out, since I couldn't tell poot from them anyways, might as well start over! Then I had two balls of rather unsightly and probably difficult to use sock yarn...so I decided to have a little wind-party and turned them into yarn cakes.


After I finished with the yarn-cakery that results from having a ball winder (huffah for that little gizmo! and no Paul, you cannot reconfigure the gear ratio, I need it to work, I don't care if it doesn't go quickly enough for you) I looked on the floor and what did I find? Two little strange bobbin thingies:

These bad boys had been nested INSIDE the yarn. I'm at a loss to what they are for. I went on a google-fest, and I still have no ACUTAL answer. If the yarn is indeed Lang Jawoll it is most definitely reinforcement thread to use when making the toes/heels so they are sturdier. Which is just too neat. I don't actually know what the yarn is as I bought it 3 years ago and lost the ball bands. I do know that I got it at Purls Tuscon. I think it's probably likely that it is reinforcment thread no matter what the brand of yarn is but I have no clue. It was fun to have easter-egg style yarn though. I was totally not expecting to have a little surprise in the center of the skein. It made finding out at 1 am that I had a paper due at 8 am that much more bearable. Anyone know for sure what these little babies are?

If anyone is interested in a KAL, or CAL, or something other than Lily, you should email me (yarndependentmeATgmailDOTcom) and let me know! Send some fun projects you want to work on too, and I'll think a list of fun goodies up, so we can pick what we want to do together. If it's just 2 or 3 of us we can do a mini, no worries.

Anyways, I'm off to be all soc-u-pied (I stole that from an e-mag, I'm really not that clever), and wait for my Jimmy Beans Wool color of the month to show up. And maybe work on some homework. We'll see. Have a good day all!

PS- Is anyone else in the Colorado area having problems with the weather being 75°F, then snowing, then being 50°F?