Fearless Fibers Yarn

I Know It's Not Christmas

I've had little time for knitting these past few days, but I have managed to find time to start work toward a new project. I've been itching to do some Fair Isle lately so I decided to do a pair of socks.

I know it isn't Christmas or anywhere close, but I happened to have some nearly solid red, green and white yarn leftover from my Christmas sock yarn sets, so I used some of this to swatch. These won't be the final colors, so the actual project will look quite different. I just couldn't wait to custom dye the yarn before beginning the design work.

After playing around with a number of design choices, the partial design above is what I think I've settled on. There's more patterning still to be knit on this little sample and I also have a special little something I'm considering doing for the foot.

It's been quite a while since I've done any color work, so even the testing and swatching is great fun and a nice change. I'm starting to envision how the actual sock will look in the colors I'll be dyeing for this project and it's got me excited to get started.

Not much knitting to share, but hey, what can I do? You can cut me some slack. I'm a busy gal! In fact, after a usual day's work yesterday, I was out in my yard shoveling dirt with my husband until dark. He's got a new project going that required we level a corner of the yard that had a big mound. He rented a rototiller and then we spent the evening shoveling dirt and carting it to a temporary dumping ground in a wheelbarrow. (Perhaps that explains why my hands looks an awful lot like the infamous Seinfeld "man hands" in the photo above.)

Between the physical exertion involved in dyeing, the walks and romping with the new puppy, and now this shoveling extravaganza, I have just one question: When exactly did I become a manual laborer?

Ah well. 'Tis good for me, I suppose.