we finally have net again. i hate our “premium-alternative” isp. i spent hours (much to my coworkers’ chagrin) literally yelling on the phone to try to get our case escalated. we pay for business class service and we got the worst customer service i have ever experienced (and that is saying a lot since i used to be an att customer in new york city). anyway, now the bandwidth is back and i can upload to my heart’s content. so pictured here is a scarf i made from my own handspun, from merino dyed by the lovely andrea. i’ve been quite ill (not from lack of internet but it may have been stress-induced from spending an hour a day on hold with incompetent nincompoops) and the only thing i could do was stay in bed and knit plain ol’ stockinette.

yesterday i managed to step out of bed long enough to sort some stash and make a decorative window display. yeah my brain goes on vacation when i am ill, but it can still sort out colors.

in the last few weeks of socktober, i didn’t manage to finish the socks i was working on, but i did crank out two shedir hats, one blue, one khaki out of the single balls of rowan calmer elisa brought me back from her trip to seattle. i love a pattern that uses single balls of yarn but it’s a bit like candy — an addiction that incites one to knit it up in all the colors you have on hand. i think this is the first time that i have knit the same pattern twice in two weeks (unless of course if you count socks or sleeves which require that you knit the same pattern twice). i also did some swatching from the japanese let’s knit 12 i received, i swatched for pattern 7 (details here and pictured below). it is quite pretty but all those twisted stitches would likely cause my hands to fall off before i completed an entire sweater of the pattern. i will swatch a few more from that book before i move onto what i really wanted to do this month: design a sweater. so we shall see how the heck that shapes up, i really have no idea what to expect.

oh and for all of you out there that think i’m already knutty for knitting, wait until you see what will be arriving from poland (via deutschland) in a week or so. i can give you a few clues, it starts with a “k” and ends with a “romski”. yep i really hankered for something other than a drop spindle. by the way, we made fun of elemm at benediktbeuern because he was spinning dental floss, but dang that is hard to do. major props to him for spinning gorgeous stuff on a spindle, and many thanks to him for the new addiction, i mean hobby. *smile* i can’t wait until i can make my own sock weight yarn. until then i have some gorgeous handspun sock yarn from the fabulous allspunup to tide me over.