The Knitting Pirate

Tonight I finished spinning up the second part of the orange section of roving. It came out a lot better than the first part! I wrapped it up on a toilet paper roll and set it aside. Now I have a choice. Since I know I’m getting better with every yard I spin, the blue-purple part of the roving is going to spin up a lot nicer than the orange. Do I ply the two parts of orange together, call it “my first handspun” and be done with it? Or do I hold on to it, see how the blue-purple comes out, and decide later?

Never decide today what can be put off for weeks. I will just hold on to it. I can always ply “just orange” later.

I think I really like spinning.

Okay, the stripes *almost* match from the first Jaywalker to the second, but they’re close enough that I think I’m going to just stop worrying about it. The heel is turned, the gusset stitches all picked up, and here comes the foot!

Pirate-Husband gets “Awesome Points” for the following conversation, in which I told him about the thing that’s been bugging me for a few days:

me: …and when I’m done with the Jaywalker, I’m going to cast on for the second Pomatomus. The only thing is…
PH: What?
me: Well, the stripey striped scarf is almost done. That’ll leave me with two lacy projects that I can only work on at home. So I was thinking I’d cast on for a second, easier sock that I could take places with me.
PH: Oh, well yeah! You need a traveling sock!

No hesitation. No sarcasm. I need a traveling sock. It’s just a fact of knitterly life! I don’t know why I thought that I might be, y’know, going overboard by having two socks going at once. Maybe it’s a concern that I’ll only work on the simple one and not finish the more complicated one? Anyway, I decided that it’ll be a simple ribbed sock with some of the Trekking XXL that Janis gave me for my birthday. I may have said that before, but now I have to decide which colorway (purplish or brownish) and how many ribs of what width.

But first… Jaywalker foot!

Last night I got through the heel flap on Jaywalker #2, but decided to go to bed rather than turn the heel. That’s the kind of thing I prefer to do all in one go, so I don’t lose my place and have to start over. I was right, the stripes are off by two rows, but I’m going to ignore that. They’re close enough that I’ll consider them matching!

I also spun up another section of orange roving. Man, pre-drafting makes that go so much smoother! I kept having to stop and pick out little bits of straw and crap, which was a little annoying. I’m happy that I seem to be gaining a little bit of speed with the spindle. Pirate-Husband wants to know what I’m going to make with this yarn once it’s done. I’m really not sure at all – guess I’ll have to see how thick it turns out after plying, what kind of yardage I get, that kind of thing.

I haven’t worked on the Stripey Striped Scarf since last week’s SnB, so I’m going to bring it with me tonight as it’s the only current WIP that’s simple enough for me to work on while I chat. Though I said I was going to end it when this ball of yarn is done, I found some leftover Kureyon from a Booga Bag I made, and I’m thinking of extending the scarf a little. This thing will never be done at this rate, or it will be as long as a Doctor Who scarf! The theme of tonight’s SnB is “Show and Tell”; I’m looking forward to seeing what people bring!

When I heard that Blue Moon Fiber Arts had added new colors, I went straight to the website to look at them. After a lot of back-and-forth, and some discussions with certain Enablers (notably Pirate-Husband, who laughed and told me to just buy the damned yarn already), I was still a little unsure about buying some Socks that Rock… and then I saw the name of one of the new colorways. Now tell me, how in hell was I supposed to resist a yarn named *Pirate’s Booty*? Really!

Of course, “you can’t buy just one.” And sock yarn doesn’t count as stash anyway, remember? Besides, it’s flat-rate shipping. So I picked another skein of lightweight in the “Moss Agate” colorway. There were a few others I was considering, but I decided to hold off for now…

At 360 yards, and with my size 10.5 feet, I think I may have to pre-split the yarn into two even balls per skein and then knit toe-up, just to be sure I get whole socks out of this. I’m eyeing the Wollmeise sock yarn for my next purchase. Shipping gets expensive, so maybe I’ll go in with someone on an order, but I hear they’re 150g skeins instead of 100, so you end up with 575 yards of the stuff!)