Change of pace

I've got a trip coming up so I was trying to decide what projects to take for the long flight.  It's been a long time since I've had a pair of socks on the needle so I thought it would be good to do socks.  So what yarn do I use?

My favorite pair of socks are made from a merino/silk yarn so wouldn't it be great to do something along those lines?  But I don't have any yarn like that.  But I do have roving.  I have some amazing Blue-faced Leicester (which, while it's not Merino, it's either the next best thing or it's the better thing)/tussah silk blend roving.  THAT could make some amazing socks.

But of course, roving is not yarn.  Roving makes yarn but it's not yarn.

When you spin the roving, though, you can make the yarn.

So last night I started.  And tonight I finished.

My friends tease me about being a fast knitter but even I have never spun and plied a full skein of yarn in 2 evenings.  Can't wait to start knitting!

Three's the charmer

This was the fastest thing I've ever done, I think.

I'd got it to this point on Saturday night.  The columns and most of the first pineapples.  I wasn't sure how long the rest would take but I started on Sunday to work the second row of pineapples.  Once I'd finished the first row of them, I had to decide how long I thought it was going to be and whether I would need a 3 row of not.  I decided not.

 

Once I'd got to this point, each pineapple had to be worked on its own.  Something that took almost exactly 20 minutes per pineapple.  People ask me sometimes how long it took to do something and it's really hard to say because I'm usually doing multiple projects at once.  This, however, took 20 minutes per pineapple.  So there you go.

 

And here you go.  I give you pineapples...

TADA!

In fact, I love this pattern so much that I've started the round tablecloth to match it.  I just couldn't help myself.