Things are chugging along as usual. This new medication is still kicking my ass, so I haven't had energy to get much done, but that's more than nothing, so here's what I've done so far today and last night after posting:
Started a new spin, just grey alpaca carded into rolags. I have one bag of this, maybe 50 g? I also have about 25 g of black to spin, and then I'll be moving on to the fawn fleece. I took the calico off the spindle and wound it into a plying ball, then chained it and rewound it for plying. It didn't come out nearly as variegated as I hoped, so that's definitely something to improve my technique on going forward. The inclusion of the fawn definitely warmed up the overall tone, but other than that, it's mostly unremarkable grey yarn. Oh well. I'll ply it up probably tomorrow. I usually give a few days between spinning and then setting up the ply ball, and then plying because it helps tame the twist and make the rewinding easier, and I didn't do that this time and hugely regret it. Patience is worth it! Saves a lot of work and headache in the end.
Getting real sick of these repairs, lol, but the weather is changing, they'll be able to get some rest, and I'll be able to knit a few more pairs to spread out the wear and things will improve. Not to mention this grey yarn in particular was spun much more softly than I would have knowing it was going to be socks, as well as being repurposed from a sweater that was attacked by moths. I definitely am pleased with how well it's holding up in light of all that, but in general, this is not holding up well at all.
The repair didn't take that long, which was nice. You can see that I've used this yarn for repairs before and it holds it up pretty well, in my experience so far, so I don't anticipate having to redo these repairs anytime soon. It's just that it keeps popping up here, there, everywhere that's the bigger problem.
Another one that needed fixing right at the transition of the heel turn. Not sure why that's such a particular weak point, but I have noticed that on a bunch of my socks. This is also the one where I used worsted weight in the heel and toe. It did last a bit longer than the surrounding yarn, but not enough that I would ever, ever do it again.
This sock has multiple problems. This is a hole in the top, second sole I knit for this sock. It worked more or less as intended; as you'll see in the picture below, the sock on the inside had many more holes in the sole than were present on the second layer, but the sock is still, in general, intact.
I stabilized the holes with buttonhole stitch all around the holes. I didn't do a repair from the inside because the yarn is really not stable enough to do so, and I'm mostly preserving these socks as a stop gap. I knew when I knit them they were not going to be a pair that got years of wear (aside from the toes and heels, maybe), I just needed some warm socks for the winter approaching and something is better than nothing. It has been a great lesson in the shortcomings and upkeep of the socks I'll be making in the future though, so I'm not mad. To finish the repair on these socks, I'll be patching the top layer of the sole over these holes. When those patches fail, I'll rip back the top sole and knit another, but for now I'm not putting in the effort because winter is basically over. If it were December or January, the calculus would be different.
I've seen those bear glasses holders making their way through social media, so I wanted to make one too, but like our cat instead of a bear. If I did this again, I think I would change the eyes; they're not as circular as I would have liked, and I might make them bigger over all as well. I think I also made the whole thing a little bigger than it strictly needed to be, so I might change that as well, if I were to do it again. Otherwise, I think it's a pretty big success.
Started back up on the blanket strips. On the close up, you can see how little stitch definition the alpaca really has. I have a lot of scraps I've been holding on to for sock heels and toes, but I've decided to just add them to the blanket and be done with it. There have been several attempts and I've found that a lot of the scraps either aren't enough for toes or are just barely enough, to the point that I wouldn't be able to weave in my ends the way I prefer, so I decided to just consider it a wash. Especially since sock repair season is ending and I'll definitely be racking up more odd little scrap balls of yarn as we re-enter sock repair season.
Well, that's it for today!
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