FO Parade

I slipped off to Augusta, GA for a week to see the in-laws, and I got a bit of knitting done there. Enough for a "parade of FOs" though I'm slightly embarrassed to admit that they're all small items, and not all of them were even among the WIPs when I left! Oh well, it's vacation. With no further ado...

A second pair of twinkle toes, this time for a friend who's a ballet lover and has a birthday coming up (and, blessedly, very small feet):



(the following is a terrible picture, but just to prove I did finish both of them...)



I was also inspired to try a pair of pocketbook slippers for the same friend. I've finished the first one. The yarn is a mystery yarn from Russia, mostly wool with a bit of silk and mohair. I'm hoping there's enough silk to keep them from felting too badly...



Just before I left I finally finished the melon scarf. I was just this close to being sick of it (NB: it's not yet blocked, and I had to white-out the background of the modeled picture because it was too weird and ugly):









Did I tell you guys that my dad got me an mp3 player for my birthday?? It arrived only after the diss work was done, and so timely it was. It's totally changed my life. I had no idea how behind I'd gotten, for one thing, on knitting podcasts - I'm nowhere near caught up even on the ones I used to listen to before the Dark Time of Diss Finishing began, never mind all the news ones! Then there's audiobooks....Not to mention, of course, the suddenly dire need for a knitted mp3 player cozy. I used leftovers of one of my all-time Favorites Yarns in Life, Himalayan recycled silk/wool in red. I made up the shaping as I went along, and inserted a little elastic and some buttons after the fact to keep things tidy. Then I also made a plain pouch to hold the headphones, so that I can throw both in my KIPer bag without worrying about tangling or damage (they fit really nicely into one of the inside side pockets).











Finally, just to prove I have been putting some work into a bigger project, here's a progress shot of the fisherman's sweater (I'm just a few rows away from splitting it up for the armholes):



Meanwhile, in Georgia, I stopped at a Michael's and picked myself up some Paton's SWS. I was a little irrational with no specific project in mind and craft-store-fumes and all, so the number and variety of skeins I bought really makes no sense, but boy are they pretty, and boy do I like staring at them while I try to think of what to make. What went through my head at the time was that I wanted a Lady Eleanor but didn't know how much I needed, and I also wanted felted slippers like these, except maybe instead of fuzzy feet I'd try the new pattern from the new book I just got...and the result was that I bought yarn that doesn't really work for any of these. I'm thinking of making two pairs of fuzzy feet and a neck warmer in entrelac a la Lady Eleanor instead. But I might still be so tipsy from the yarn that that doesn't make sense either.









Georgia was nice (though hot, and/or stormy), but now were back and in full packing/sorting mode. Very tiring and kind of blah. Can't wait to move on to NH at the end of the month: 1) no plane to get there, 2) good weather, 3) we get to stay put for a while, 4) fresh air, trees, hiking.