Thanks to all of you for the warm welcome for the Sock Summit teachers. Tina and I knew that y’all were going to flip the frak out, and you did. (Actually, we had a tiny crisis of faith the night before the list went up, and called each other and our right hand women and said “It is a good list right? I mean, we’re not smoking our own dope here are we? It’s a good list?” and then we read it again and realized it wasn’t a good list. It’s a great list, and we couldn’t be prouder.) Glad you’re thrilled. Class descriptions, costs, hotels and such are next, a few weeks out, and registration will follow a while after that so you have time to peruse. In the meantime, I finished the February Lady sweater, and I love it. Love.

It’s not just that it’s good looking either (although I really do think it’s beautiful) it’s that it’s a handspun and handknit thing, and it just makes me feel so clever.

You know how when you’re knitting – just knitting with regular store yarn – there’s a certain pride and sense of your own intelligence? You keep spreading it out on your knees, patting and admiring it, and it’s all because you’re clever enough to be turning string into clothes all by yourself? Well I’m here to tell you that when the chain of events is so much yours from beginning to end, that feeling is incredible.

I turned Roving’s polwarth in Brick

Into this:

My own singles, ready for plying

To this:

3 ply Aran weight yarn, made on my own little Ashford Traditional

To this:

Handmade buttons from Philosophers wool

To this:

February Lady. 450g of sweater-ey goodness. (In the end, I had more than enough yarn. By a lot.)

Fit’s pretty good. No modifications to the pattern, except to make the “yo” increases “m1” increases because I didn’t like the holes – as well as moving the last few increases to the shoulder sides instead of the armpits to try and avoid some of the extra fabric that seems to bunch up there. (I don’t know if that was entirely successful, but I’d have to knit it again to be sure – so screw it. I’ll find a way to live with wondering.)

It is warm and cozy and light and the fabric is really stable and it goes with everything I own. (This is mostly because almost everything I own is orange or brown. I dress like a UPS guy or an appliance repair man.) The thrill of taking string and turning it into clothes is magnified by about a million percent if you made the string too, and all I can think when I admire this (and I am admiring it, an almost shameful amount) is this:

Do you know how many things I had to do right to get this?

Magic.

Question of the day: I have empty needles (well, except for a secret project I can’t show you, and all those projects I’m ignoring) but I do have three skeins (750yards) of the Toots Le Blanc fingering weight 40/60 Angora/merino.

I’m thinking lace. Suggestions welcome.