Procrastinator ! ! !

Procrastination, I'm good at it.

I've been putting off posting a pic of my Fair Isle Practice piece.

Don't get me wrong.  I enjoyed this bit of learning

and have adopted this method of taking care of the 'floats' on the back of my work

while carrying one yarn across a number of stitches.

But just didn't want to post a photo to the blog

that I'm not in love with.

The class is on CreativeBug

and is taught by Brandon Mably.

His classes can be found by clicking on the link toward the bottom of the CreeativeBug home page under "Instructors".

Since I used fingering weight yarn and small needles instead of the 

worsted weight yarn and size 8 needles in the tutorial

the pattern on the front side does not impress me.

Much too large a pattern for such a small area.

The suggested use of making 'magic balls' of yarn from leftover scraps

was not to my usual way of choosing colors. 

The contrast in the beginning rows isn't to my liking.

After seeing that

I just went to my leftovers to pick and use

colors with enough contrast 

to tell the background from the flowers.

At any rate, here it is .

Enough Procrastination ! ! !

As you can see contrast is non-existent in several rows in the beginning [bottom of pic].

The gaping hole in the center flower 

[first row of flowers]

I didn't see it until two or three rows later.

- the instructor of this class, said not to worry,

no ripping back,

just continue and learn from it.

Now the back is a whole 'nother matter.

The beginning rows aren't so great

but just look at those rows in the second half of this swatch.

Very neat, indeed ! ! !

No Looking For A Darning Needle

No Weaving in All Those Pesky Ends

All of that is taken care of by 

knitting in the end of the old yarn

 and the beginning of the new yarn

as the rows are worked.

Just maybe a snip or two along the way.

I'm impressed on how easily Brandon was able to show me how to do this technique.

I had tried this particular way of carrying the floats

but it just didn't take.

Now I can use this in just about any piece I knit.

This orange-cuff sock is just another version of my previous Broken Seed Stitch sox.

Just replacing the cuff color from the white does change the entire look.

I think I love it ! ! ! ! 

Our temp this afternoon

is a balmy 71 degrees F 

I think we can live with that.

We're sitting here in the dining room

keeping eye on the birdies feeding

from our deck feeders.

Oh, I don't want to not mention 

that dang pesky squirrel

who thinks all the 

premium black sunflower seeds

were set out just for him.

The grass is definitely turning green

and soon Spring Blossoms will abound.

hugs 'n smiles,

Gerry

Fair Isle Practice

Seems I don't have many solid color sock yarn leftovers.

This practice project call for solid color yarn in as many colors possible.

This all I could gather.

I'll work with what I have since this is a practice.

If my swatch turns out decent

and I like the technique 

I'll consider purchasing small skeins of various colors. 

The step after assembling solids is to make two 'magic balls'.

One from the light colors and another from the dark.

These 'magic balls' are made with arms' length of each color. 

The aim is to place pleasing colors next to each other and knot them together to form a small ball.

Here's my light magic ball.

Brandon Mably showed how he knits the yarn ends as he adds each new color,

thus no need to find a darning needle to weave in those pesky ends.

I'll be casting on and knitting a practice swatch.

Photos will follow just as soon as my swatch is far enough along to show some progress.

I think this is going to be a fun practice.

* * *

I don't know whether to think that Spring is actually here or if Mother Nature is playing a trick on us.

The temps yesterday and today are what are called Marvelous.

Mid to high sixties had us opening windows and doors.

The forecasters are saying we'll be able to enjoy such weather for the next seven or so days.

We can only hope.

Heck, we still have snow at the end of our driveway.

hugs 'n smiles

Scrappy Four-Color Sox are a Done Deal! !

These were fun to knit ! ! ! 

Every color a scrap leftover from previous sox.

Lots of ends to weave in and trim.

However, this week I did watch a

Brandon Mably instructional video

on knitting using several different yarns

in a piece - such as FairIsle knitting.

Had I watched this video a week earlier

those loose ends at the beginning and ending

of a yarn would not have been so tedious.

Brandon Mably

- an associate of Kaffee Fassett, THE MASTER of color in my eyes -

taught not a new method to me

but taught it in a way that made it easy for me to learn.

I'm so excited about this new knowledge that my next project will be one using many pieces of scrap yarn and knitting them in as they are

added using class material provided by this instructional video

on CreativeBug.

There are videos on a variety of subjects,

stop by there may be something that catches your fancy.

Tomorrow I'll post the beginning of my new learning project.

*  *  *  *  *

Our temp right now is 59 degrees F.

YaaaHoooo ! ! ! ! 

hugs 'n smiles,

Gerry

Scrappy Sox

My current sox on the needles.

This pair is made from the leftover yarn from

Go For The Green sox

Neon Blue sox

and the grey is from a pair of sox I made a couple of years ago.

Knit cuff down and an afterthought heel is planned as you can see the pink waste yarn marking the heel.

I hope to finish these by tomorrow evening so that I can post a finished pair Thursday.  Fingers crossed.

We've had our 6" snow yesterday.

Today streets - and parking lots - are dry.

Even got the car washed this afternoon.

Boy, was it good to get all that road dirt off

and a shining clean car to drive.

Tomorrow it's supposed to rain !

hugs 'n smiles,

Gerry