High Fibre

Because photographing my beadwork is so much easier (the camera and lights setup is an armslength from my beading surface, and the camera is pretty well adjusted), I rarely photograph anything else, which has the dual effect of my sucking at photographing anything besides beadwork (not that I'm claiming to be anything even approaching vaguely good at it), as well as appearing something of a braggart when I mention knitting or spinning and have nothing to show for it.

To attempt to remedy the latter, even partially, I present: socks in progress in a yummy bamboo sock yarn, a birthday present from me to me (I'm such an appreciative recipient), Janel's Rivendell. Needles to say, the real colour is more of a coral and less of a pink.

I've been lusting after it since I first saw a picture, and was crushed when I realised that none of my sock yarns were the right size, and the pattern was not easily scaleable. Luckily I didn't pay much attention when ordering my birthday yarn, and it turned out to be exactly what I needed, even moreso that I'd expected!

Serendipity. It rocks.

I suspect the foot will not follow the pattern because I have this habit you see...

More birthday yarn - I LOVE THIS STUFF - progressing swimmingly.

Of course, the fact that I'm not a fan of knitting in pieces and then sewing where knitting in the round would do, I used the pattern as a guideline only, and didn't swatch, not even a bad, inaccurate swatch, and in fact I still haven't measured my gauge.

The knitting in the round thing gives me no cause for regrets; however I'm guessing that my row-to-stitch ratio is different than the pattern was expecting, because the area from the bust up needed rethinking. It's still a vee-neck and all that, but the top part really needed to be knitted on a bit of a bias to allow the bottom part to hang correctly, and as of about fifteen minutes ago, seemed to be working very well indeed.

A month or two ago, I was all smug and braggy at spinners' day, telling them all how I always wash my yarns as soon as they're plied, and so of course the yarn that I plied that day sat unwashed for over a month, but I'm pleased to announce with a certain amount of embarrassment at my erstwhile smugitude: Twelve Ounces of Yum!

It's mostly merino, with some silk and some angora, I think. I don't exactly remember, as three different rovings were spun and then plied to make it.

And lest anyone be concerned that I've forsaken beads for fibre (as if!) it would be remiss of me to not post pictures of two necklaces, one of which will eventually go into my Etsy shop, the other of which is causing me to have a hard time with the concept "not mine", so I think it will have to remain so. Mine, that is.

This is really a tiny little beaded bead (not much more than half an inch in diameter) on a very fine chain with the smallest toggle I've ever seen. I can easily bear to part with it, as the colours don't sing to me and besides, I can make more.

This one, not so much.

The little beaded beads are quite small too, the main focal (a variant on those I made over the weekend) is little more than inch in diameter. What enchants me about this is the fringe beads that I used in the small beaded beads: pale transparent lime green with a neon-bright orange core, which are really quite ugly when you see them in a pile on the table or in a tube, but when sewn together with semi-matte dull bronze beads, there's magic.

It's possible that the really hideous ones with neon pink cores that I've hidden so well I don't know where to start looking for them might be attractive in the right setting too, though I confess my heart sank when I first saw them. Context is everything!