tanis fiber arts | First Light Handcrafts

A few weeks ago I looked at my list of projects that I have cast on in the last *mumblety-mumble* months and found the number to be more than a bit jarring. I seem to have “knitting ADD” lately…the minute something new and pretty comes along, I am off and my lovely WIPs are left languishing. Right now, OTN, I have a collection of three fingering weight scarves…one of which has the distinction (?) of being my oldest WIP…cast on in January of last year. There is my Colour Affection, which for some reason I never really got into, and another shawlette I was super excited about (love the pattern, adore the OOAK Tanis Fiber Arts yarn) and just put it down last fall, never to resume. On and on it goes.

Shockingly, I only have two pairs of socks on needles, one of which is on 2mm needles and I think it intimidates me somewhat….again, a pattern I adored (Margaritaville by Adrienne Fong) but it has a 72-stitch cast on, ergo the small needles. (I have little-ish feet).

The second pair is a pair of No Purl Monkeys in indigodragonfly MCN Sock (since renamed to Mergoat Sock) in “Don’t You Have An Elsewhere To Be”. I cast these on last fall for the wedding of the indigodragonfly couple, Kim and Ron. (The invitation said knitting was encouraged…I HAD to bring something!) I knit the cuff and a single repeat, then put them down to knit socks for my parents for Christmas, and that, as they say, was all she wrote.

Kim and Ron are hosting their Annual Highlands Fibre Fling this coming weekend and I figured I’d resurrect them to bring as my “sit about and chat” project. I dug them out of my WIP tote yesterday morning and started them up again.

It seems my finish-itis is in better shape than I might have thought. By dinner time last night…the leg was done.

And before I went to work this morning, the heel flap was done, the heel was turned and the gussets stitches were picked up. By the end of the evening, I am hoping to have all the gusset decreases done and be on the foot.

I am suddenly glad this is the first sock so I can have a second one on needles for Saturday.

On a not unrelated note…I wonder if this is the reason why, of twelve WIPs, only two are socks.

I woke up Saturday morning with goals…several of them, in fact. DH was working 7-3 both Saturday and Sunday, and this meant I had lots of time to do what I wanted, so I made plans.

I had planned to knit my Dad a pair of Anne Hanson’s Sign of Four socks. So determined was I to cast them on, that I started the Rav project. That’s commitment, right there. If I build it, it will cast on, right?

I had also determined that I was going to re-start my spinning, so again, one Ravelry project coming right up!

And third, I had determined that my Reunion Cowl in a stunning red indigodragonfly MCN Lace that I had been working on steadily since Christmas was coming off the needles, by hook or by crook. So I queued up Season 4 of Angel, and settled in, feeling pretty good.

Right.

I once heard an expression: “Man Plans. God Laughs.” Yep…that was my Saturday.

The Reunion Cowl took a lot longer than I expected to finish and cast off. There were a few reasons, the largest of which was that my adorable dog decided she wanted all. the. attention. and needed to go outside an unprecedented 5 times in 8 hours. Now, there are a few things to note here.

1) You can be in the apartment for hours, and never know Kayleigh is there. She sleeps a lot and is generally like a cat in the amount of attention she wants. Nope. All day long she was in my face looking for attention. If I picked up needles…there she was. No way I was knitting on her watch.

If she didn't weight 40+ pounds, the rest of her would have been in my lap!

If she didn’t weigh 40+ pounds, the rest of her would have been in my lap!

2) We live on the 14th floor of an apartment highrise. So this means that there is no “letting her out”. Nope…you have to get dressed, dress her up in her coat, go all the way down stairs etc etc… This is a very time consuming activity.

So much for my nice quiet Saturday. I did manage to get the cowl done by the time DH got home but that pretty much covered it.

Saturday evening, I was determined to get my other two goals accomplished so while catching up on some TV, I cast on Dad’s socks…SweetGeorgia Tough Love Sock in Espresso.

Socks…more brown socks.

I swear there will be a moratorium on brown knitting and 1×1 ribbing the minute these are done. Then when DH turned on a hockey game at 8:30 or so, I hauled out my wheel for the first time in at least six months. I only spun for half an hour, and it was not a good start (I appear to be having issues with underspinning and my yarn keeps falling apart) but it was a start. Hooray for determination!

Sunday, I didn’t anticipate getting a lot done. I was awake half the night with the aforementioned puppy, and slept in a little. I did finish the cuff of Dad’s sock but that was about it. I woke up to an email from Christina over at Lone Maple Studio, with her new pattern attached for test knitting, so I went stash diving for the most cheerful sock yarn I owned. By the end of the evening, I had decided on a discontinued multi from Tanis Fiber Arts in a colourway called Tulip.

I figured when I need a break from the never ending socks of brown, this colourway will be spring-like, with it’s teal, purple and yellow.

So, I did manage to get my goals accomplished, although I am still not entirely sure how. It does, though, go to show that the best laid plans of mice and me often go awry.