Fiber Fool

I’m having a strong case of startitis. I have more than enough on my plate right now and I think because of that I’m lusting after other people’s knitting patterns. Thankfully I do have some new-ish yarns in the queue to be knitting with. Above is the lovely Chickadee from Quince & Co, a Maine-based company that launched this summer with some great names and experience behind them - Pam Allen, Carrie Bostick Hoge and Bob Rice. This yarn has a wonderful feel to it and I can’t wait to get it on the needles and start swatching. I’m super excited about the design it is for too. I think that siren song is strong enough to keep me from casting on a non-design project (I’m all for knitting other designer’s work and I plan to do a good bit of it as soon as my current project is wrapped, but I have to avoid temptation just now).

This may be the next design on the needles as soon as I wrap the three (or at least one of the three) that are currently on needles. Three designs at a time is enough. Especially when you consider there is still writing, editing, photographing and test knitting to be done on other projects. With three projects on the needles there is a good chance I’m at a KIP-friendly point on any one of the three at a given time should I shake my recent hermit tendencies and start socializing again.

This yarn is quite new to the line up at Frog Tree (a fair trade company). It is their new sock yarn, Pediboo, an 80/20 blend of superwash merino and bamboo. I discovered it at the My Sister Knit’s 6th Anniversary sale and scooped it up. I also know the general plan for this yarn and am excited for it. Though this one still has a lot of the details to work out yet so it will be a bit before I’m ready to cast it on. Though swatching will be in order before the details are decided on. I love the hand of it and I’m thinking the manner in which it is spun and plied will really compliment the general design.

Now this yarn is one of the three currently on the needles. This is Nordique Sport from St. Denis, a Veronik Avery yarn and is not quite as new as the above yarns. It is very squishy, sproingy and a nice solid yarn. It needs to come off the needles though. I’m having a bit of gauge trouble at the moment and I overshot my target size by a lot. It is not, however, the fault of the yarn. It is the stitch pattern’s fault. It is one of those kind of stretchy patterns, not quite as troublesome as a rib, but nearly so. I suspected the problem for a while, but kept denying it. On Monday I came to the conclusion that it had to be frogged. It is Friday and I haven’t yet done so. I thought I would at SnB on Monday night. I packed my nostpinne, but ended up casting on another design project instead (the third project on the needles) that I had packed in case I had successfully frogged the St. Denis project before our evening was up. Ah, sometimes you just have to go with what it feels good to work on.

I think the plan for today is to frog the St. Denis, but with the ball winder rather than the nostpinne. And perhaps put my disc of The Medium from NetFlix in the player (this is disc 2 of season 1 and the jury is still out whether I’ll stick with it) and finally wrap up the third project that is on the needles. That may be a tad tall of an order, but if I could get half way to finishing it today it will have been a productive day!

I have some fun with Alpacamundo (who had her first cria birth recently) lined up for the weekend that should provide some good blog fodder and hopefully some great photo ops. That is if I don’t get shy about snapping shots in a crowd… It’ll be good for me though to get out of the house (and not distract DH from his grad school homework) and to be amongst people. Monday nights have been about all the socializing I’ve been doing most of the summer.

I hope you all have a great weekend and get to enjoy these last summer-kissed days!