My dear Sean, who is a very patient spouse-of-a-knitter, has finally put his foot down and insisted that I put some entries into the State Fair this year. (Yes it’s in September, and yes, I know it’s almost July, and no, I haven’t been so stupid as to actually count the days I have to complete these, thankyouverymuch.) Thankfully, he had some definite ideas about what I should enter, so that helped the process immensely.

Project 1 is a shawl knit with my own handspun.  Here’s the roving I chose:

My first challenge was to see if I could spin a decent lace weight single that wasn’t horribly over twisted. I thought it would be smart to spin up a small amount and see if it would work. This is what I came up with:

I had expected it to spin up a darker blue, but I love the purple.  The different shadings should give the shawl some visual depth.  I hope.

I’m using Elizabeth Zimmerman’s Pi Shawl as my backbone for the pattern. I want the inner circles to be plain stockinette, and then I’ll branch into some lace that is yet to be determined.

I do so love dyeing!

I did some experimenting to get beyond “semisolids” for a few of these, and I’m very pleased with the results!

I’m at that lovely point in my knitting to-do list that is the result of start-itis but has yet to reach the satisfying conclusion of finish-itis.  What do we knitters call that? Middle-itis? Get-er-done-itis? Time-to-face-the-music-missy-you-bit-off-more-than-you-thought-you-did-itis?  The good part is, I never have to think hard about what I ought to be doig with spare moments. Knitting. I don’t even have to look hard to find one of the porjects I need to get finished. They are all about me. I’m sure my family is thrilled.

I wonder if someone has come up with a handy scheduler that tells someone when to work on which of a number of projects.  What do you fellow knitters do? Work on a different one each day? Switch out by the hour? I’m thinking there had to be a more logical choice than “my current whim says THIS”.  (Some may suggest that a logical aproach would be to finish one project before starting another, but I am not willing to take such drastic measures.)

Here is one thing I’ve actually finished in the last couple days:

This sock actually has a mate now.  The pattern is Feather the Waves, knit with Malabrigo sock yarn (yum) and it’s my first toe-up sock. It’s fun to shake things up once in a while. I have another pair of socks to knit for the owner of this par and they will then wing their way north.

This one has been adopted by a soon-to-be one-year-old.  And more have been requested by all the other children in the house.

Check that. Everyone under the age of 38 is in love with this elephant.

And we are all going to do a little weeping when it is time to send him to his new home.

I love the name of this sock pattern!  Monkey is one of those patterns that makes sock knitting fly.

This is the second pair of Monkeys I’ve knit, and I’m sure it won’t be the last.

Katie modeled these for the picture and insists that they really want to be hers. Harumph, I say!

I actually HAVE been knitting…but most of it has been either “secret” or bulk dishcloths, which haven’t inspired much blogging.

But slowly, what was once secret can now be shared without fear of spoiling any surprises…like this lace scarf.

I don’t think I will ever get tired of the magic of lace. It really is not very promising straight off the needles.  This was knit with baby alpaca, so it was at least a soft unpromising wad.

And then the blocking…

Ideally this would be done with blocking wires rather than 8 billion pins, but either way works.  Katie helped me stretch and pin the scarf so all the design showed its beauty.

Dry and blocked, this pretty scarf was given by a friend to another friend, and will be a memento of her visit to the States.

These socks are finally finished!  I used this fun pattern in some Knit Picks Felici yarn. Katie loves modelling socks…I think she secretly hopes I’ll decide they look perfect on her and she ought to keep them.

I added another “baby” hat pattern to the Etsy shop today. This one is called “Hope” in honor of a little girl who’s just been born who is already facing a serious operation.

It is built around an 11-stitch repeat that makes it easy to resize for larger sizes.  I really like this one.