Spinning and Knitting Progress - Yes...There Was Some!

Even with all my travels and festivals, I have managed to get some knitting and spinning done. Not as much as I'd planned, of course, but I have made progress. I finished spinning some roving from my stash AND finished knitting another pair of socks.

The Solitude Socks I started during "Soctoberfest" are finally done. I'd started on the second sock while I was in NY and was really puzzled as to why the top of the cuff looked so different from the cuff of the first sock. Not puzzled enough to "really" look at it and figure out why, but just enough to casually note that it was different. I continued to "blindly" knit the cuff. I was on a mission to get the sock done...during October!

When I returned to VA, I continued working on the cuff at my spinning group. The cuff was almost done and STILL looked a bit off. Suddenly, it dawned on me! I had combined the instructions for two separate sock patterns for the first sock....BUT I neglected to combine them in the SAME way for the second sock! I normally do "Hellen's Favorite Socks" in a 3x1 rib for a good basic sock....but this time, I decided I wanted a folded cuff - and decided to to a 2x2 rib. So, for the first sock, I did the 2x2 rib - BUT the second sock was started as a 3x1 rib - comfortably settling into my "standard" cuff style! That's why the cuffs looked soooo different! Geez....what a bonehead! I had to frog the whole cuff on the second sock and redo it the proper way - as a 2x2 rib! I definitely took the long route to completing these socks...but now they're done...and I have another finished object and one less UFO!

The past week or so, I also managed to fit in a bit of spinning. I spun up the deep maroon Dorset that I purchased from Amondale Farm at the NY Sheep and Wool Festival in 2006.
I love the color - a deep rich maroon with some dark purple blended in to give the resulting yarn some depth. However, I found that I'm really not fond of spinning it. The Dorset was very tough to spin evenly and tended to stick to itself. Perhaps the stickiness was from too much lanolin left in the wool. When I "snuggled" the yarn, I found it to be a bit on the scratchy side as well - definitely not something I'd want directly against my skin. I'm thinking it would make a great felted bag or some other type of accessory....perhaps a needle roll?