Sean has been after me for years to enter my knitting into the State Fair. This year, I finally did it. I submitted 3 items in 3 different classes:

This baby jacket,

this scarf,

and these socks.

Today I took these pictures:

Thank you, Sean, for your encouragement!  And thank you to those of you who encouraged me…I’m tickled pink (or maybe blue?)!

This Autumn Vines Stole just finished blocking this morning and will be winging its way westward shortly.

It’s a very easily memorizable pattern that produces a really lovely result.

Katie agrees.

I think I’ve forgotten to post a  finished sock as well. Cookie A’s Baudelaire:

It’s another fun one that looks much harder than it is!

I really like the cable on the sides.

This one’s called Victorian Shawlette…such a sweet, simple pattern. It’s got some brilliant shoulder shaping in the design.

The other one is Ysolda’s Ishbel Shawl that everyone and their hamster are knitting these days, with good reason.

It’s a fun, quick knit.  The finished shawl looks very intricate, yet the pattern is quite simple. I love it and hope to make another one soon!

These are both heading miles and miles away, much to the sorrow of my model, who thinks they are just perfect for her.

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!