Knit, Spin, Ply, Knit . . .

On Thursday, we did a lot of driving, enough that I was able to finish the body of Gramps down to the ribbing. The picture shows the moment when I was finishing up the frogged yarn from Gramps Version 1 and starting a new ball of yarn. I’m not sure why this is always such a wonderful thing, but it it is, it is, it is.

Now I need to figure out what I’m going to use for the contrasting color for the collar and the ribbing. I’d like something that matches the taupey/neutraly color in the “Argyle,” but it’s hard to tell from looking at photos online which color might work. I contacted Lorna’s Laces to see if they can tell me, but so far I haven’t heard back. Might have to give them a call.

Last night, we had sushi with our friends Cari and Jay, and Cari and I had festive adult beverages. Mine was a Wasabi Bloodytini. It was very good. I can’t remember what Cari’s was called, but it was apparently very good too.

And look at Cari’s necklace! How about that for handknits in action?! I love it! Our dear friend P made it for Cari for her birthday. I’ll check with P, but I’m pretty sure it’s this pattern.

Before meeting Cari and Jay, we did a little belated birthday shopping at the bookstore. Since we live in the middle of nowhere, getting to go to an actual bookstore is big fun.

In addition to two novels and a new cookbook, I got a rechargeable book light (i.e., knitting light!), and it works really well. I have a headlight that I’ve been using for a few years to knit in the car after dark, but it goes through batteries like crazy. Hopefully, the rechargeable feature on the new one will make it a little less pricey to use.

I knitted on my BFF socks on the drive home, and the new light worked great. Here’s a picture. You can see the cookbook in the background. It’s Alana Chernila’s Handmade Kitchen. More on it another time.

The other thing I’ve been doing this week is spinning. Spinzilla ends tomorrow, and my goal for it was to spin at least a mile. I think I might make it!

Here’s what I did today while we watched the Baylor game. This is 4 oz of superwash Targhee. It’s Hello Yarn club fiber that I got in a destash. The colorway is “A Tinkle and a Glint.” You can’t really tell from this picture, but it’s full of wine, burgundy, rose . . . lovely reds.

And here’s some of the plied alpaca/BFL I was working on earlier this week. I’m thinking I might use this to knit Summer Flies. I ended up with 480 yards of it, so I think I’ll have plenty. I’ve had the pattern in my queue forever, and now that I know from Storm Cloud how wearable the half circle shape is for a shawl, I’m anxious to knit something else with this shape.

Of course, I ended up with an uneven amount of singles on one bobbin when I was plying this. Usually, I weigh what’s left and try to divide it between bobbins so I can finish up without any leftovers. Since this is Spinzilla, though, and time is yardage, I wanted a quicker, less fiddly way to finish plying what was left on the one bobbin. My plan was to try Andean plying, but while I was looking for a good tutorial, I came across another technique called hand plying. It’s awesome! I’m sure I’ll try Andean plying at some point, but this method is definitely going in my bag of spinning tricks as well.

I’ll be finishing up my Spinzilla spinning tomorrow, so I should have an update on that for you on Monday. Hope you’re having a great fall weekend!