A Long Time Ago....

I've been having a few health issues over the summer, which led me to stop posting until I got a better handle on myself. Being chronically ill is no picnic. And at the beginning of September, I and several of my co-workers were laid off, which led into a round of all sorts of calls, appointments, and various mayhem.

On the bright side, I've taken some time to bring some projects to completion in between applying for jobs. Spinning and knitting are truly marvelous rehab opportunities! And as usual, my knitting group has been super supportive, which I am forever thankful for. Love you guys!

A while back, Kate asked me to design a couple of pairs of socks for A Hundred Ravens. I finished up pair one and sent that to her last week, and it's really quite nice. I'll post photos after she's sent it to her club. The pattern itself won't be available separately for a few months as it's a club exclusive, but I'm quite pleased with it! Nice textured pattern that looks good in tonal yarns, and has looped stitches which can help break up pooling in more colorful handpaints.

Spinning's been keeping me busy too as I want to bring down the spinning WIP count. So far, so good!

Finished a lovely Inglenook Fibers batt, in colorway Crocus (the purple above). Super sweet, very soft, and will make a nice knitted necklace, I think. It's been quite a joy to spin, and I definitely recommend Mother Macrina's fibers.

Earlier in the year, I succumbed to the lure of a sale at Mad Angel Creations and bought two lovely bright blue and gold batts named Royal Fireworks. Normally I just pull strips from the side of a batt and spin, but this time I divided the fiber horizontally, spinning sections of blue, then gold, and finally plying them together for some sweet barberpole action. :) This yarn is destined to become an Elis cowl, a nifty free pattern on Ravelry by Reiko Kuwamura.

And today, I finished spinning a Wild Hare Fiber Studio superwash wool in a gradient colorway called Midnight Orchid. The feel of this fiber reminded me very much of the Targhee wool I spun last year and gave to Anna. Soft, bouncy, sproingy... it'll make a great shawl. I spun 678 yards in fingering, so I'll have plenty of patterns to choose from.

That'll be the trouble, won't it? Settling down to pick patterns for my handspun. Guess there are worse problems to have though.