WIP Wednesday #19

Hey Everyone,

I am joining Steph@Woolythyme , Ginny@Small Things , and TamisAmis for Yarn Along / WIP Wednesday today.  Please check out their blogs -- they are great bloggers and prolific crafters to be sure...  I love sharing their links, but please do not come back and compare my photography to Ginny's -- she's an excellent photographer.

First, I would like to mention that my friend Steph has lost her knitting mojo.   If you see it, please contact her at Woolthyme so that she may retrieve it.  :)

It is WIP Wednesday, so let's talk about socks.  I am still diligently working through my pair of boot socks.  The leg is complete and the heel is turned.  I am down to the arch of the foot on both socks and expect to finish them any day now.

On the literary front, I am still listening to Thunderhead by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child.  The book is a great story about an archaeologist's desperate search for her father, closure, and fame while leading an expedition through a cursed Anasazi Indian tribe's "holy land".  It is a very compelling read, or listen as the case may be.

Well, it is mid February already.  To be honest I am not quite sure I was even aware we had rolled on in to February.  This is a good thing, as this month is my least favorite of the entire year.  Luckily for me, it is also the shortest.  True to form, it has been a dark, dank, dreary, month with a roller coaster of temperature changes and very little to look forward to.  Lots of ... gray...

Roxie agrees with me...

:)  Oh well.  It has also been a good month for yarn and knitting. I have spent inordinate amounts of time on Ravelry lately.  I believe that Cascade 220 Sport Wool yarn and Stephen West are working together with Clara Parkes to get me through the winter blues...

[Picture courtesy of Stephen West's Westy's Besties Kal.  Taken by Jared Flood]

If you haven't discovered it yet, Stephen West is doing a new KAL.  Well, it is called a KAL but it is really more of a KAL booklet consisting of 12 patterns released over 5 weeks.  Westies Besties is the name and you can check it out here.  The patterns released so far have been true to the Westknits MO -- they are fun to knit and handsome, bordering on manly, in example color selection and stitch patterning.  I am itching to get started on some of the patterns and have already ordered a treasure trove of Cascade 220 Sport do them in.  The photography is also worth mentioning.  Jared Flood photographed most of the items for Stephen in Iceland and so the scenery is as stunning as the patterns...

Clara Parkes is well underway with The Great White Bale -- an adventure she is sharing with Bale members as she and they explore the creation of yarn on a small industrial scale.  Every two weeks we get a peek into the progress she is making as she has a 676 pound bale of excellent wool fiber milled, spun, and dyed.  Later in the process, explorer members like myself, will each get to test the different versions of the spun yarn and provide feedback on the pros and cons of each form of processing.  It is a fantastic and educational exercise in creating yarn!  Although the Explorer memberships have all been bought, there are still armchair memberships available if you would like to join us in following the process of making yarn!  You can check that out: here.

Well, that is all that I currently have in the works... 

Let me know what you are working on!  Leave a comment below...

Happy Knitting Everyone!