Last year was a very unproductive year knitwise for me. I think I completed two pairs of socks, and that is all! I hope to change that very sad statistic this year. Keeping that in mind, I'm ready to post not one FO, but two.
First to the finish line this year was a skein of yarn I spun myself. Yeah, I spun it myself! See, all my handspun yarn thus far has looked more like string than yarn. But this skein is actual, real, "pretty" yarn.
This is Great Balls of Fire from Crown Mountain Farm's fantastic hand-dyed, merino superwash wool roving. I have spun all 8 ounces, but this is the first skein I have plied. There looks to be 240 yards, plenty to begin to knit a pair of socks. Hey, this will qualify for my first Twisted Knitters post, too!
I tried for a closeup of the yarn, but my camera doesn't do closeups well. I'm posting it, though, because I'm so dang proud of my yarn that even a bad photo deserves its glory.
My next FO is actual knitting. Okay, so it is only a pair of socks, but a lovely pair of socks they are.
The pattern is Baudelaire from the Summer 2006 issue of Knitty. The wonderfully talented Cookie A. is the designer. I absolutely love her sock patterns. Baudelaire is a bit of lace and a bit of cable. They are knit toe-up, which is different from my normal way of knitting socks. The pattern was easy enough to memorize, but difficult enough to keep my interest. The yarn is Gems fingering weight in French Blue. This is my first time knitting with the Gems, and I will definitely use it again. (These socks are for my sockret pal, whom I hope hasn't figured out who her pal is, or she will not be surprised with her socks. Hope she likes them!)
What will be my next FO of 2007? Time will tell, but I do have a couple of WIP's going: the Hidcote Garden Shawl and Ariann sweater, both of which are entertaining me immensely.
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