Three more pairs of socks!

The Super Sock Scarefest of 2013 is over and I have 4 pairs of socks to show for it!  These are three more to add to the list.

Pattern-  Faces in the Wallpaper

Yarn- Kitting Fever Painted Desert 08

 

The color was interrupted/spliced on one of the plies making one sock more muted than the other.

 

Pattern- Swamp Thing

Yarn- Mountain Colors Bearfoot in Juniper

 

Pattern- Anna

Yarn- Cascade Yarns Heritage Silk 5648

Scary Socks and green dye.

Finished a pair of socks that was a pre-Super Sock Scarefest bonus pattern for the Ravelry group.  I really loved the way these colors turned out with the pattern and the socks are comfortable, too!  Pattern- The Thirteenth by Heatherly Walker.  Yarn- Patons Kroy FX Sock in "camo", 2 balls.

 

Also, the roadside wildflowers have been growing like mad this year!  This is what blackeyed susans in an iron pot will make on superwash sock yarn.

Socks for Dad and the TDF

Finally finished a pair of socks I promised my dad nearly 3 years to make; two to find the right color yarn and one to actually knit them up!  Pattern- Retro Rib by Evelyn A. Clark, from Favorite Socks- 25 Timeless Designs book.  Yarn- Dream in Color Everlasting Sock in Holly colorway.

 

A note about the Tour de Fleece on Ravelry this year.  To put it bluntly, someone I know has died on a motorcycle during the TDF the past two years.  It could be coincidence or something else, but I didn't feel like testing out "third time's a charm" theory.  I've done quite a few projects since my last post, but if I didn't get it on here then, it's not going to get posted now! =/

TDF 2012- so far

It's a little half way through the Tour de Fleece 2012 on Ravelry. I've already spun up 12.4oz of fiber. 4.3 of that is punta from The Sheep Shed Studio that I handdyed. The rest is part of a 1lb raw fleece spinning challenge for one of the teams I am on. It is black alpaca blended with wool and a bit of silk. Each skein is a blend of 2oz of alpaca, .75oz of Romeldale/ColumbiaX wool and .125oz of kettledyed silk. The silk gets laid on the drum carder during the final card. I split the alpaca/wool blended batt into four quarters. The silk goes on between the first and second, and the third and fourth. I've got three skeins finished and a fourth ready to be spun. That puts me halfway through the 1lb alpaca goal.

Jack-O-Lantern

I got a bug to make a paper mache jack-o-lantern in early October, mostly just to see if I could. Two websites were excellent references with great tutorials- STOLLOWEEN and Spookyblue I wanted a great big one, so I started with a 33 gallon trashbag full of packing peanuts. I used some hay bale twine to tie around the bag to form ridges and taped those in place.

Then the first layer of paper strips. For the adhesive, I used 2 parts Elmers All Purpose glue, 1 part Outdoor Waterproof wood glue and 1 part water. Then added the stem. It is just twisted paper with a baling wire core to hold the shape. I also used a couple of shorter peices of wire to help secure the stem to the body of the pumpkin. Paper mache pulp is already being added to build up the surface. There is a lot of dry time between layers.

Newspaper, pewspaper, brown paper bag, newspaper X 3 more, then a final layer of blue shop towel (this material really sucks up the glue!). I cut out the face, used cereal box strips on the cut edges, and used more paper pulp to fill it out. I also added a few warty bumps, then covered all that with the blue towel.

Primed, painted and sealed with spar urethane. It was perched on top of our porch. I can see a whole pumpkin patch full of these for next year!

Sock Monkey

When I came across a sock monkey kit in a box of craft items I won at an auction, my oldest said she wanted one to have while at college in Hawaii. It's finally done and gone, and I can say I will most likely never make another. At least not this way again. I think I would rather knit one up myself than sew these horribly stretchy socks. In making dolls, I stuff quite firmly, so it was a challenge to keep him from growing fat! I'm glad he's done and I hope he is never held for an M&M ransom! ;)

TDF2011 Total

I should have posted this in July. I mostly concentrated on a Romney/RomeldaleX fleece; about ten and a half ounces worth of 3ply finished and two filled bobbins. There was a period of time I didn't spin anything, because I was morning the loss of a dear friend. But on the final day, I spun some Sheep Shed Studio mill end. Just a couple oz. in a 2ply.