Fearless Fibers Yarn

From Zero to Sixty

It seems that I've gone from very little knitting done recently to a sudden flurry of activity and productivity. I guess the new project I told you about last week did the trick to get me motivated again.

Before I dive into knitting talk, I first want to remind everyone that I have hot news coming later this week. I'll post about it here Friday afternoon or evening.

Okay, okay! I'll give you a little hint: SYC. Hmmm. Perhaps that's too much of a hint. You're all sure to guess that. Here's another one that I dare you to try to figure out: SDS. Ha! You won't figure that part out! You'll just have to wait for Friday for the full scoop.

On the knitting front, I finally finished the never-ending spiral rib socks in my FF Superwash Merino Wool Sock Yarn in the Royalty colorway. This picture's a bit difficult to see, but at least it proves that there are indeed two finished socks!



Here's a better photo for you, but I could only get one sock in the picture, since that's my own foot that I'm holding stretched out in front of me and suspended in mid-air while I take this picture:



Although these socks seemed to take forever to finish, I must say that I rather like them. The spiral rib does just what it should and creates a nice, snug fit.

I actually finished these socks on Saturday, which was rather unfortunate timing because I had a knitting gathering to attend on Sunday. There's a newly formed Yahoo group for knitting bloggers here in the Portland area and they had a meetup at a yarn shop in downtown Portland. Much to my own surprise, I actually made it to the meetup! I'm so busy these days that it's not often I can take time off for a little diversion such as this, but the opportunity to meet other knitting bloggers in the area was too good to pass up.

Being a very bad blogger, I didn't even think about taking my camera! If anyone is yearning to see photos, MonicaPDX took quite a number of them and has them posted on her blog, along with a much better summary of the gathering than I could possibly recall.

It was certainly a nice opportunity to meet folks (there were more than 20 knitting bloggers there and three were actually customers of mine, which was particularly cool!), but I have to admit that large groups are really not in my comfort zone. I felt even more out of my element because I didn't have any real knitting with me. Crazy, huh? I just didn't realize until right before I left the house that with my socks just finished , I had no small project on the stitcks to bring with me. I could have brought the demon-sweater, but I was at the point of shaping armholes and neckline and it didn't seem wise to try to do that while chit-chatting amidst a group of other knitters. That could have been a disaster in the making! And, of course, the ripple stitch afghan is way too large to tote around town.

I ended up grabbing a skein of Laceweight Merino in the Rubicund colorway, along with a few pairs of needles.



About all I did during the meetup was knit a few rows of this and tear it out, knit a few rows of that and tear it out. It did, however, yield some positive results. Just playing around with the yarn got me to thinking about the direction for another lace scarf project. If you recall, I planned on knitting quite a few this summer. I've done two so far and with the socks now finished, a third lace scarf will be a perfect small project to replace that.

By the time I got home, I had a pretty clear picture in mind of what I wanted to do and set about swatching and charting, charting and swatching. The pattern is now solidifed and I'm underway.



I went with a much more stark and geometrical pattern this time, against a garter ground. Although stockinet is certainly prettier than garter, I rather like a garter ground for a scarf since it creates a right side and wrong side that are virtually indistinguishable from one another to the casual eye. Since scarves tend to flip about when worn, it's rather nice to have very little difference between front and back.

The demon-sweater is also well on its way to the home stretch now. I finished up the back piece and now have the front and back blocking. (It's too curled in on itself to seam it properly without blocking first.) Once that's done, I can seam it and finish the neckline and sleeve caps and call it a done.

Finishing the spiral socks and making good progress toward finishing the demon-sweater meant that I allowed myself to cast-on for my new project: the zipper-front sweater jacket in the Anny Blatt Merinos yarn.



To get the required gauge, I ended up having to go two needle sizes below what the pattern specified! Do I knit that loosely or are designers having a good laugh at my expense?

Alrighty then. That's about all for today. Tune in Friday for the big unveiling of the SYC. (Yeah, yeah, I know you know what that is. But how about SDS? Huh? Figured out that one yet, smartypants?)

Great day to all!