Ask me what I did this weekend

Remember I was working on spinning some mohair and was wondering if it would work to ply it with the turquoise merino? Well, here are the results:

I love the way the solid colored merino toned down and grounded the colors of the mohair. I've got a couple more ounces of the mohair to spin and I'm waiting for more merino to come so I can finish. This skein turned out what I would call heavy lace weight, makeing about 320 yards (72 grams) so doing the rest of it should give me about 600 yards. Now it's just a matter of figuring out what the pretty yarn wants to be!

I had to do some traveling last week for my job. Actually, I should say I got to travel because it was the perfect opportunity to do some exploring. Of course, any trip requires the project search. I couldn't figure out what I wanted to take with me because I didn't really have a good project going to take. So I quickly grabbed this black wool that my friend Cindy gave me and the leftover yarn from some recent socks and started to experiment with it. I've been wanting to do some other projects using the Brioche stitch in preparation for our Heritage Knitting Retreat next June. I thought it would be cool to have the electric colors of the sock yarn against the black. The gauntlet is reminiscent of what you might have seen in the latter half of the 19th century.

The second thing I grabbed was some Fortissima Socka in white and the pattern for "Evening Stockings for a Young Lady to Knit." It's a sock pattern in the Nov/Dec 2009 Piecework Magazine, adapted by Nancy Bush from a Weldon's pattern. As you can see, it's a long sock and the lacy pattern is so lacy and so easy, you wouldn't believe. The shaping for the leg is done along the back of the leg so you have a seam running up the back and the pretty lace everywhere else. I know this looks like a sock to fit a child but that's only because it's not blocked yet and I have pretty small feet anyway.

I thought I would make this with the white yarn because it's the only sock yarn I had 3 skeins of (bought it for something else that I ended up not making) and I wanted to be sure I had enough. The thought was to make them with the white and then dye them but I like them so much that I've decided to keep them as is. I would definitely recommend these for sock lovers. Easy with a huge payoff!