Incase you’re wondering, I wasn’t able to have my little sushi treat for lunch. The grocery store hadn’t made the rolls when I dropped by.
But, I got to spend a good four or five hours dyeing yesterday. Unfortunately, that means most everything is too wet to photograph, but I snagged a few pictures.
The alpaca socks are done! And, amazingly enough, I discovered that it’s been over a year since I began them. Yep. I started them in January of last year. If you want to follow along with the knitting saga take a look a these posts from February 19th, 2010 and January 19th, 2011.
Oh, and to make things even better, somehow, someway I ended up knitting one sock on size ones, and the other on size twos. No, I’m not ripping it back and starting over. They both stay on my feet, and the difference isn’t too huge unless you notice that one is an inch or so shorter than the other. A good reason to not repeat the “it takes a year to finish these” method.
About the same time I finished those up, I finished spinning the singles for my “Violet, You’re Turning Violet.” Hurrah! A lovely bluefaced leicester and silk blend. I’m thinking it will turn out as a DK or light worsted weight. Two ply.
While I was photographing the singles, I started playing around with a clock key and wound up with this photo. (No pun intended.) The colors are slightly off, but I like the feel of the picture.
I recently came into possession of a large compilation of the works of Lewis Carroll. It’s a big, beautiful “leather” bound copy. Not so good for taking on trips, but excellent for curling up with on a gray afternoon. From my initial perusing of the new material (I’m already very familiar with the two Alice stories) I’ve come to the conclusion that Carrol can be very amusing to read, but he tends to wander off into lengthy dissertations on things in which I have little-to-no interest.
However, to get to the point, one of his shorter writings features tips on writing letters and contains this little gem: “My second Rule is, don’t fill more than a page and a half with apologies for not having written sooner!” And I have taken this to heart. I think it safe to assume that you’re fed up with my apologies for not having blogged sooner, so I will dispense with them forthwith.
I’ve been keeping pretty busy lately with various fiber projects. One of which was a large undertaking. 
Eight ounces of superwash BFL fiber to be handspun and dyed for a Maiden Yarn customer. Oh my goodness – I practically had to fight off my knitting sister to keep the spun yarn. Bluefaced Leicester is rapidly elbowing its soft and lustrous way to the top of the fiber heap, so to speak. It’s simply wonderful stuff.
Here we are at Part B of my lately acquired stash. It’s rather sad when it requires two posts just to show what I came home with from two yarn stores and a friend’s house. What would happen on a shop hop? I dare not think.
Well, let me see, where to start. Perhaps some of you remember when MamaMentor gave me those beautiful blue stitch markers? I’m happy to announce that they now have cousins. MamaMentor made me some gorgeous amethyst ones as well. Beautiful! (Thank you so much.)
We got the beads at a wonderful yarn and fiber store called Rose Path Weaving. Note the fiber. I happened to find certain fibers I had been planning to get for a sweater project, so I jumped at the chance to save shipping. I got some cream baby alpaca, BFL, and mohair locks to blend. The mohair doesn’t appear to be washed, so I have to decide whether I want to try washing it before I blend it into the others, or just wait and wash the yarn to minimize risks of felting.