It's here! It's here!

I knew I was doomed when I saw the words 'Free International Shipping'. My order of unbelieveably gorgeous sock yarn is here! I'm still fondling it and gloating.

The booty:

Mountain Colours bearfoot in Granite Peak. Utterly beautiful. I just gaze at it mesmerised and can't stop touching. It would make wonderful gloves.

Smooshy in Spring Tickle. Just the lime/spring green I was hoping for. I'm thinking cabled boot socks.

Lana Grossa Meilenweit in cranberry latte. Lovely colours, standard yarn. It feels like it will wear well, and is earmarked for another pair of 2x2 zigzag cuff socks, but with more shaping into the ankle.

Noro sock yarn. Beautiful colours, weird feel. Best plan with this I think will be to knit at a very tight gauge, then felt to fit. Plenty of yardage to play with for this approach.

Photos when it's light.

One dead totalitarian despot just isn't enough

I just love this, and I don't even smoke. Yesterday was my first day volunteering at an op shop which funds animal charities, and this was my volunteer freebie. It's heavy, good quality, with enamelling and the standard photo of the Chairman under glass. Tomorrow I'll get some lighter fluid and try to get it going. There's no chance I'm going to stop with just this. On future op shop expeditions I'll be keeping my eyes open for other tyrant memorabilia. Surely there must be some Josef Stalin knick-knacks out there somewhere.

At least I won't be mistaken for a moose and shot

This is some pre-dyed romney fleece I bought on Trademe, in a colourway named Autumn. In the photos it looked darker, more rust-coloured. When it arrived and I opened it up, my first thought was "Holy crap, that's orange." Not quite blaze orange, but it's close. The photograph doesnt' come close to showing how rich the colour is.

As I spin it up (four hanks so far), it's growing on me. It's coming out as a very attractive burnt orange tweed, somewhere between dk and aran weight.

With a kilo of the stuff there will be enough for practically anything, and I'm tending towards making something along the lines of Jodi Green's Durrow, but with a zip front. All those decisions can wait - there's still about 750 grams to be spun, and a bobbin of unplied singles.

In the mail yesterday was 100g of superwash-treated natural cream merino. The plan is to spin sock yarn, and experiment with dying it. As usual, I haven't quite worked out the finer details of this plan, and need to decide whether to dye the fleece or the completed yarn.

What would Hal do?

Finished the Wanganui Socks last night. I'm not going to examine them too closely, because I didn't refer to the first when knitting the second, so it's probably all bollocksed up, but not enough to matter. Frankly, I'm astonished at how closely matched the striping is. I'm not remotely compulsive about matchiness, and the stripes fall whererever they fall. I was amazed to learn that some people unwind the ball of self-striping yarn so as to begin in the correct part of the colour sequence. It's something that never, ever would have occurred to me to do.

The cuff is an increase/decrease pattern based on 2x2 rib, 26 stitches on each of 3 dpns. I'm obsessed with this type of pattern at the moment, and would like to experiment with beginning in the chevron pattern and then merging into plain 2x2 rib in an organic way, twining ribs together to make decorative decreases. The cuff is fairly snug and non-stretchy, so no problems with them sliding down my feet and disappearing into my boots.

One of my knit night buddies has given me some Lorna's Laces sock yarn in beautiful sunset colours, and I'm looking for something special enough to do the yarn justice. Chevrons or Coriolis? Tending towards Coriolis.