Decision Made

I decided to keep going on the existing projects rather than starting something new.  The Mystery Shawl is now in the first round of clue 2, where I have already discovered that I am off by two stitches.  I suspect I skipped or dropped a couple of yarnovers, which is easy enough to fix.  The yarn color doesn't show up well in the picture. It's a heathered green, gold, brown that fairly glistens in the sun.

The red Nylamb socks are also back to being an active project. It's hard for me to believe that I ditched this project. At the time I was knitting it, my skills probably found the lace difficult to follow. Now it is a piece of cake to follow the chart. I love this rich red color.

Fiber Stash Inventory
I finally got most of my spinning fiber stash inventory into Ravelry.  This meant making a mess of the living room for a couple of days while I sorted, photographed and logged things. I am coming to the conclusion that I shouldn't take the whole spinning stash with me when I temporarily move east. The hard part will be figuring out what I will take with me and how spinning goals will impact my knitting and sewing goals. I've already decided the floor loom stays here.  I wish I had more than 24 hours in a day....

Decisions, Decisions

I finished up two pair of socks last week--got the ends run in on Drogon (they had been sitting for a couple of weeks) and finished re-knitting the foot of what I affectionately refer to as Froot Loop socks.  I initially knit the Froot Loops back in 2004 or 2005, but blew out the heel of one in 2014 and decided to rip back to fix it.  In looking at the original sock, the heel of it will need to be darned soon. Here's hoping I don't end up blowing out the 2nd heel the first time I wear these.

Now I'm trying to decide if I should keep going on my finishing kick or start something new.  I did just get the June installment of the Paradise Fibers Yarn Club.  There's a lovely skein of MJ Yarns Silken DK Weight in a stunning blue colorway named Cerulean Twilight.  The pattern they shipped with it is Aegaea from Little Nutmeg Productions, which would make a scarf suitable for wearing to the office with a blouse.(I'm slowly deciding that my new work wardrobe will feature scarves, rather than necklaces as an accessory.)

In the finishing queue, I have a pair of Lacy Arrow-Patterned socks in well-aged red Nylamb.  I started these in 2000 when my knitting was slow and tentative and I considered size 1 needles to be teeny tiny.  The yarn is an intense blue-red.   I also still have the two plain stockinette socks underway.  My Full Moon Mystery Shawl is patiently waiting in the middle of Clue 1.  It is another stunning design from Bad Cat Designs.  I don't know that I'd have the nerve to try one of Andrea's designs if it hadn't been a Mystery Knit-Along.  It's a lot less intimidating to only get a small piece at a time.

Progress and Inventory

 I spent part of last weekend inventorying my fiber stash in Ravelry.  I hoped that I'd be able to export the fiber stash list to Excel but that functionality doesn't exist for fiber stash, just yarn stash. It's probably for the best. It may not be good to know how big it is.

Speaking of stash, although I have avoided buying yarn at shops (except for the one ball of yarn purchased in Knoxville, TN at the yarn shop located 1/2 mile from my hotel), my stash has continued to grow faster than I knit.  I have continued to find yarn that I hadn't put into my stash listing on Ravelry. To make matters worse, the additions from the Paradise Fiber yarn club and the Cookie A sock club are outstripping what I use up.  I think I've been fooling myself about how fast I knit.  Looking back over my project list in Ravelry, I only finish 5 or 6 projects a year. I was thinking it was closer to 10 or 12.

WsIP and FOs (and Frogs)

I finished the first of the Randiriel socks. The yarn is from Lorna's Laces. I'm going to frog it. The sock is tight across the instep and keeps wanting to twist around my foot.  It just doesn't fit my foot well. This is the third attempt at using this yarn. I'm about to give up on it and purge it from my stash.

This was one of the Paradise Fibers Yarn Club offerings. I like the yarn and the color (Three Irish Girls Adorn Sock in Spokane River Walk). I don't like the pattern-All of My Ducks in a Row. The bobbles are a nuisance to knit and they don't show up as well as I'd like for the effort they take. I'm sure I can find a pattern that will suit this yarn better. I'll frog this one too.

This is my new plain stockinette, mindless knitting. I'm almost halfway through the first sock. The yarn makes blue, green, and tan stripes with gray/white dots in between. I knit the leg portion of the first sock while at the Mid-Columbia Symphony performance of Beethoven's 9th Symphony a few weeks back.

These are the Girl On Fire socks from Cookie A. The yarn is Plucky Knitter Plucky Feet. The color is a brilliant fuschia named Goin Steady. This wasn't the yarn shipped with this pattern, but I didn't think the color of the shipped yarn quite matched what the pattern needed.

I also finished a Baby Surprise Sweater for a co-worker's first baby. I just need to sew on the buttons and hand it over to the proud grandpa (also a co-worker) to deliver.