Tour de Fleece and Socks

So between class, work, and finding a house (which means packing cleaning etc), I have been spinning on the Tour de Fleece. My goal was and has been to spin all the Jacob I have, some of which is dyed and some of which is natural brown. I got the brown done first.

This picture is more true to the color than the other one. It's a fingering/light fingering weight, and there's over 700 yards of it. I'm calling it "Fezzik" after the Princess Bride, I'm also planning to knit the Inconcievable wrap from it. I'll get a different guage but that's okay.

Here is all the yarn that has been set, there are four skiens of it. The Jacob was a trial, it was fun and it is beautiful but the sheep was unjacketed and I processed this from the raw so there was much picking and even in spinning a lot of VM came out, but I think it's pretty and will have that rustic look that I want.

And because this is a knitting journal at the heart of it all, here are the cookie A. socks I finished (knit during my last class - Logic). It's the Thelonious Socks pattern done in Cables and Lace "Night's Plutonian Shore" from the Poe Club. Its hard to take accurate pictures of them because I am only one person (without sock blockers). But they are pretty and I am enjoying them.

Plagues, carding, socks, and Poe.

Can't keep my mind from the circling skies
Tongue-tied and twisted just an earthbound misfit, I
- Pink Floyd

Okay, I started the Waterlily Top. I found my 9mm circs and boom, a skien was knit up, and now I'm onto skein two, because really... what else is there to do with ones evening? (Don't mention the homework or the impending letter of intent please).
I also finished spinning up 4 oz. of the Ram that I had processed. It came out in a grey/blue kind of color and then I navajo plyed it. I tend to like the ram in a more worsted woolen aran weight anyway.
This however means I need to card something. There is an itch in my soul for carding and oh yes it shall be done.
The Thelonius socks by Cookie A. are still on the needles Sock #1 was finished two days ago and sock two is well into the pattern. I'm useing the "Night's Plutonian Shore" colorway from the Poe Club that Violet (of Lime and Violet/Happy Housewife) and Cables and Lace are doing. They're actually taller than I had expected but the generous helping of yarn will surely make the pair (there probably won't be much left though).
I've given up the ghost as far as attempting to keep myself on only five projects this summer. I throw caution to the wind, let the startitis plague me I do not care. Eventually everything will get knit and eventually everything will get spun, so while I'm busy decluttering and destashing my life, I will just have to accept that the stash of fibre stays no matter what (we will not speak of the acrylic - it serves it's purpose).

The yarn gods smile

Occasionally it happens that when a fibreista such as myself sees her stash dwindleing she is hit with a paralyzing fear that she is going to *gasp* run out of yarn for projects. I had a few such moments in the days leading to my birthday, Really I am not joking I thought to myself "I better get spinning so I have stuff to knit with". I was on a processing dying spinning kick and what I wanted more than anything was to be reinvigorated by the stash.
Now the yarn goddess must have known my plight, and through some kind of strange twist she embibed my family with wonderous ideas of yarn. So I give you the take, aka what mah mommy and bro/sil got me.

First off let me say mom went to River City Yarns in Edmonton (one of the benifits of having a parental unit that travels a lot), I gave her a little list of suggestions, she not only got everything on the damned list, she got more!

Ilga Leja patterns, Ancient Bark, Balsam, and Earth Maiden.

What is this, could this be a bag of Manon? Silk and Arucania, plus the pattern, there was a lot of squeeing and swooning. I like to pet it before bed.

Mom said she saw this and had to get it for me, it's the knit kit for Fibre Trends Hedgies! I can make my own stuffed hedgies! And I've been wanting to try out the fibre trends for aageess.

Colinette Giotto (for the IK Waterlily top), this kind of stuff is never found here, it's usually beyond overpriced, and there is never enough to actually make something more than a shrug. So I am over the moon about this. I almost cast it on last night, but then found that although I have them my 9mm circs were no where to be found.

For the spinner/dyer's soul, half a pound of louet biffle, and a soy bamboo sampler. I've never spun with either soy or bamboo so I am super excited.

When going anywhere that carries STR I will usually beg and plead for a few skeins. I got two! which means i can either make something like a shawl or a pair of knee socks either way, two skiens of bunny foo foo.

On occasion Mary Maxim has a kit that makes you remember why you look at it in the first place, this is one of those kits, I have been drooling over this jacket for almost a year now, saying all the time that I will buy it when I have money to spare (as we all know how often that happens). My bro and SIL got the kit for my birthday, which is totally jinxing me in the starting department.

Seriously I was over half way through my goal of not having more than five projects on the needles at a given time until this giant pile of stash ended up in my lap. Sure I casted on the Textured Jacket recently, and I have the Thelonius socks on the needles for school, and a bunch of other things that languish in the WIP pile, but now I want to start everything. Maybe summer will be the time to have some severe knitting startitis that will all get finished in the fall. Hard to say. What I do know is There is not enough time in the day to properly molest this new haul.