Dying and Plying

I'm off on a wee road trip, my dad turns 75 this friday (happy birthday dad), and its a long weekend. Always is with his birthday, Anzac day, 25th of April, remembrance day for those who served in war. So road trip, off to Waimate, for a few days, catch up with KathyR, then on to a William Morris exhibition on in Christchurch. I'm a big fan, big fan, big big fan. Which means no post this weekend, but lots of car knitting.
but I have been on leave, with the kids and as well as baking cupcakes and going to movies (Spiderwick - for 5 year old Poppy scary but ok) ... I've been knitting, 3 item on the go, and one finished, and dying ready for the knitting camp on twined knitting, and plying the Alpaca for a Bears Scarf. Remember guess the knitting tool before end of April, and go in the draw to win Vintage Purl sock yarn, all commenter's go in the draw, and if any one does guess correctly - well they get sock yarn as well.
First up Salto socks are progressing nicely, the increases and decreases to move the cable forward have begun. There was little frogging incident, two actually, when I realise that I had mucked up a cable twist a repeat or so back, so I dropped back the stitches in question and repaired the damage - you would never know. I'm not sure what I like most, being able to spot mistakes in my own work or fixing them easily.


And yes, I'm still garter ribbing away on the 19cm required for the hem of the tangled yoke cardigan. Nearly 12 cm - what is this going to be like to knit when it is plain stocking stitch? Usually my socks are my mindless knitting, but right now the socks are the 'challenge me' project and the cardigan is the mindless project. Given how much knitting is in a cardigan on 2.5mm needles, I'd say there are a few more challenging socks on the way.

And this, a really quick knit, cast on and done in an hour or so. One of our admins came a knocking at work, with her music thing (not an Ipod some other type of mp3), and wanted to know if one of us would make her a leather cosy. You know, in that way that we knitters sit around waiting for sweater and sock and hat requests? Like mechanics are dead keen to fix and tune up other peoples cars for fun? Like accountants really want to sort your finances out ready for tax time just because they can. I've been guilty of that kind of request myself, mostly to my mechanic dad. Now I'm a good person most of the time, so I wizzed up this little bag, it has an opening down the side for the off/on switch, and a hole in the lower left corner for the ear phone cord. Its is silky alpaca, left over from a pair of modified fetchings. Yup thats a cardboard cut out of her mp3 player.



And dying, for knitting camp, twinned knitting, we need Z yarn if we have it. I have a whole 750g cone of it, some where between lace and fingering weight. Twined knitting can be plain, or can have a 2nd or 3rd colour at the cast on, and again in the patterning. So ... I've been dying some of my cone red and black. The cream in the back - well thats the left over from Toby's possum merino sweater, after I knit it I discovered it was Z twist. The grey is the original colour, all tweedy, and the two others I dyed. Should give me enough to play with at camp. I'm also taking the yarn left over from my Andean hat, its a lace weight 2 ply in about 6 colours.


And I've finished spinning and plying the alpaca merino beansprout blend. Total meterage is 514m, in 4 skeins. The last 2 are drying on the radiator. You can see I'm still a beginner, with some consistency issues to work on. Still its all good and knittable. I have had second thoughts about knitting My So Called Scarf (sorry can't link to it right now). When I printed out the pages, one of the commenter's raised questions about flaring at the cast on and the bind off edges. Stacey, poster of the scarf pattern, said hers flared to. So I've been considering a scarf in Milano stitch. I guess I will swatch and decide. I'm going to wind this into balls tonight and take the two patterns and yarn as my car trip knitting. I'm also playing with the idea of making the scarf 'fisherman' inspired. I think that is what its called where the center of the scarf if ribbed to fit the neck better.

Ok - enjoy the rest of the week, and the weekend, I will.
Stella