I fell really, really hard for some wonderful colors of Klee silk yarn from The Sanguine Gryphon.   Then I had to use it ... right away, immediately.  Forget about all of those other works-in-progress.

They were just perfect for Jane Thornley's Come Spring Vest.  So here is what I have so far:



Closeup:


In addition to the Klee, I am using: 

    - Tilli Tomas beaded Cleopatra ribbon in "Ant" 
    - Jade Sapphire Maju Silk
    - Great Adirondack Cyclone in "Paprika" 
    - Colinette Giotto ribbon in "Lichen"
    - Alchemy Silken Straw in "Chicasaw Ground."

Here are the yummy balls of Klee:


Colorway:  Ancient Sound



Colorway:  Fig Tree


Colorway: Villa R

This week only, Gryphon is having a sale on all of her green yarns (St. Patrick's Day), and the Ancient Sound and Fig Tree are 10% off.  Here's the link.

This is the second kit from Sanguine Gryphon's Fairy Tale Sock Club II:



Theseus and the Minotaur socks!  How cool is that?

I am this far:



I finished the first Embossed Leaves sock and am almost done with the second:



The pups are fine.  Jerry Lee loves the futon in the guest room when I leave the door open for him:



I know that expression, he is up to something...

Marilyn sticks with her doggie bed because the old girl can't jump up on the furniture any more:

The shoes and skirt do actually go together quite well by themselves, but today I really wanted to wear my Wollmeise Happy Socks:



I love working from home!

I can't start any new sock projects until I finish something.   These are for Linda, in Schaeffer Heather yarn.  I finished the first one back in September, and have been working feverishly on the second one since I realized that I had already missed her birthday last week:



And, just in time for spring, I just got this skein of Wollmeise in a swap:

I have had a shoe addiction a lot longer than I have had the yarn addiction.  I have gotten a lot more selective about when I indulge in the shoe addiction, probably because I have the yarn thing to distract me.

Recently I found the most "OMG I have to have them" shoes on sale:



No, I didn't actually go out in public wearing them with those socks.  The nice thing about working from home is that I can wear whatever strikes my fancy to work...

I also got the same shoes in a kind of peachy orange.  (Please remember that I live in Florida, so these are very practical colors, my black shoes just get dusty down here.)

And then I realized that my beloved socks don't really go with the shoes.  Therefore, I decided that I need to plan my sock knitting better.  So this is what I did today:



The Sanguine Gryphon Eidos yarn in Ion and Polimarchus



These work with both of the colors of shoe!



Itata yarn from Araucania



Wollmeise in Pfefferminz Prinz and Vergissmeinnicht.



Wollmeise in Frosch.



Calypso from Creatively Dyed Yarn.



Scarlett Fleece and Castle Fibers sock yarns.



Tausendschon yarns



More Tausenschon

How on earth am I going to decide which ones to do first?

Yes, this is how I spent my Sunday morning.  That, and working on this:



The "Embossed Leaves" sock pattern from the book "Favorite Socks" in Eidos yarn from The Sanguine Gryphon.  No one does green like Gryphon!

They give off sleep vapors when they nap:



Still working on my big huge Casbah blankie.  That will keep me out of trouble for a while.

I am really pleased with how my Handmaiden Casbah throw is turning out:



I like the way that using the two strands blends the colors, and the mixed up 2x2 rib gives it texture without having to follow a complicated pattern.

Although the pattern is easy when you understand it, I am having trouble coming up with an easy way to explain it.  Basically, it is a 2x2 rib that is shifted over 2 spaces after a certain number of rows.  Originally, I was going to make each segment six rows long, but that looked too rigid.  Instead, I decided to use the Fibonacci sequence to determine the number of rows.  So the pattern is:

13 rows - k2p2 rib
8 rows - p2k2 rib
5 rows- k2p2 rib
3 rows - p2k2 rib
2 rows - k2p2 rib
3 rows - p2k2 rib
5 rows - k2p2 rib
8 rows -  p2k2 rib
... and then you repeat from the beginning 

I cast on 250 stitches using 2 strands on #9 needles.  That makes it very wide (about 54").  Basically, it needs to be a multiple of 4 stitches plus 10 stitches for the border sections.

The border sections are 5 stitches wide, so each row is:

Ktbl (knit through the back loop), k1p1k1p1  -- then follow the "Fibonacci rib pattern" until 5 stitches remain -- k1p1k1p1, slip the last stich with the yarn in back.

Clear as mud? 

Well, I tried to diagram the stitches, but that makes it look even more frightening.  Here is the diagram of the "Fibonacci rib":

This is a little late, but I really enjoyed Uncle Jay's review of last year and thought that you might too.

They are finished!  These are my happy socks, because when I look down at my feet and see these, I feel happy!





Pattern:  "Waves and Piers"  by Charlene Schurch from "The Little Box of Socks"
Yarn:  Wollmeise Sockenwolle 100%, "Johannisbeer und Brennessel"

Last week I saw a colorway of Handmaiden Casbah that I just had to have.  I don't know what it is about these colors, but I just fell in love with this combination and had visions of a gorgeous ruana:



Then I started thinking about knitting something that big on teeny tiny needles and I knew that I would never finish it. 

But, I just had to make something to wrap myself up in this wonderful yarn.  I played around with it a bit, and finally came up with a pattern for knittng a blankie (sophisticated people call it a "throw") using two strands held together.

Here are the beginnings of it:



I am using #9 needles and  I really like the way that knitting 2 strands mixes up the colors.  I like pooling, but I don't like it when colors come out in stripey little segments.  This avoids that effect.

I am doing a broken 2x2 rib and using a Fibonacci sequence to determine number of rows in each segment in order to give it more texture.  I'll write down the details later.

This is sort of an odd color combination, and I don't know why I fell in love with it so hard and fast that I suddenly needed a throw made out of it.  It is a huge investment because Casbah is a cashmere blend, and Handmaiden isn't cheap.  Normally I agonize for a long time over this sort of project, but this was just love at first sight.  I hope that the love lasts, because I am going to living with this blankie for a long, long time.

I am so in love my Wollmeise socks, which I am knitting for me, me, me:



Color:  Johannisbeer und Brennessel
Pattern:  Waves and Piers from The Little Box of Socks