Let there be light!

Finally, late Friday night, my mother and her neighbors had power restored! They are all recuperating  now from their almost 2 weeks of struggling to eat and stay warm with no power. The neighbors are returning home and/or getting back to normal. The people who were working on her block were from Washington state and the mid-west!

I started the vanilla socks for my men. I want to knit these as fast as possible so that there are enough socks to go all week without washing them. You can see that I have both socks started. I will feel better finishing the pair together. I don't like to knit them at the same time on 2 circs - I did that once and it didn't work well. I just used 2 sets of DPNs and will work them alternately.





  I cast on the Mystery shawl over the weekend. I love the way the cables show with this yarn. I can't decide whether I like the YOs the way I did them or if I should rip and make them smaller. I think I will leave them, though, since they are at least consistent in size. The yarn is Domy Heather in a pretty, light gray.







The Mystery cowl KAL starts tomorrow. Here is my yarn. It's the wrong gauge but I liked it and will adjust.





  One of the Ravelry groups I belong to has sponsored a bff cowl swap. Two people each knit a cowl twice. They send on to their swap buddy and keep one. The two different cowls are then grafted together. Here is mine.

And a close up of the stitch pattern. The photo above is closer in color.

My bff swap partner is using the same yarn but in a colorway in shades of gray and we agreed to use stitch patterns that would be horizontal when worn. Her pattern is Frostlight and I think they will look very nice together.

I plied my Black Welsh Mountain singles over the weekend. I did not have an even amount on each bobbin, though, so I didn't clear bobbins as planned. That's OK. It helps to make me more monogamous and get this fiber spun up.

I still haven't been spindle spinning.  My shoulder is still fairly painful and I don't know until the activity is over whether I have irritated the injury. I am unwilling to do that for spindle spinning. I can use the wheel without increasing the pain so that is what I will do. Maybe I'll finish the BWM faster?

My spinning plans for the next year are taking shape. I want to make 2013, at least the first few months, the year of learning new techniques and getting better at the older ones. I want to sample more art yarns, I want to make a nice corespun yarn. I want to spin an even bulky yarn. There's more, but I'll just say that I want to work at learning this coming year.

My knitting will be more planned and less spontaneous next year, too. I want to find projects for my handspun yarns. I plan to go through my handspun and sort the yarns together into groups that might be knitted together. I don't like the patch work look, so those types of projects are out. I will try to find some shawls or cowls that will be enhanced by the use of several different yarns together. For those yarns that won't go with others, I will find mitts or something smaller to make with them. In the future (for the next year, at least)  I plan to shop for yarn in my stash and find a pattern to make rather than finding the pattern and then looking for yarn.

I worked on the sleeve for Bob's sweater over the weekend. I am nearing the top of the sleeve - most of the sleeve shaping has been done. I have to measure the sleeve against the opening to see if I have to adjust the length, then bind off and sew. One more sleeve to go after that!