Busy As A Bee

The new year has begun and, if you know me, I've bitten off more than I can chew already!  It's only January and I've joined a couple of groups on Ravelry; one is to make 52 pair of socks this year and the other is to spin 50 braids of fiber.  I'm going to try to keep up, but I don't mind being a massive fail in both categories.

This year, we're making toys for the children in the NICU at a local hospital so I tried out a little pattern and it's too fiddly and the directions aren't great, but after a few alterations, it wasn't so bad.  Say hello to Marisol the Mouse (Ravelry):

She was made with Wool Ease from Lion Brand (gray heather) and Simply Soft from Caron (pink).  Cute, but not a pattern for me.  I had to alter the ears.  The knit ones had to be sewn on and they looked crazy, so I used a crochet hook and did one single crochet, one double crochet, then one single crochet again.

Then I did some spinning.  Hopefully the practice now will mean I'm all warmed up for the Tour de Fleece in July.  This is 100% merino from Unwind Yarn in Tiger's Eye:

The bobbins weren't even by a long shot, so the top skein is 3 ply and the bottom is 2 ply.  They haven't been soaked yet so yardage is pending, but the spinning took a couple of weeks.  Whew!  It's not as yellow as I thought it would be, it's more gold - thank goodness.  It was spun up at my son's request (he claims he wants a hat), but if he doesn't want it, I have a cowl in mind.

The knitting circle ladies learned the Magic 8 cast on last week and their sock 'assignment' was Socks on a Plane by Laura Linneman of the Knit Girllls.  The pattern is so well written that after the cast on, no one who is working on the sock seems to be having a problem.  I finished the socks in about 4 days, but I used scrap yarn to make them and I used Jeny's Super Stretchy Bind Off on one sock.

Two things went wrong.  I forgot that a sock from the to up is wider than a sock made cuff down, so I didn't need a super stretchy bind off, just a regular bind off, and I ran out of yarn!  Can you believe it?  I can't!  The end result was this:

Massive fail!  One sock is shorter and the shorter sock has some other scrap yarn I found, but whatever.  I'll make a pair I will wear with pride on another day.  Sheesh!

Moving right along, I joined a Blue Faced Leicester fiber club and my first installment came last week:

I spun it up last night and it is beautiful!  I tried to spin it worsted, so tomorrow I'll ply it and see where we stand with it.  I hope it stays pretty.

Lastly, I'm working on another Selbu Modern in sock yarn - by request.  I usually don't take request, especially to make the same thing twice, but this case was special, so here it is:

The yarn is Dale Baby Ull (white) and Cherry Tree Hill sock yarn in blues.  Nice hat, but twice in a row it takes a lot of stamina to keep at it.  Mercifully, I'm halfway done.

So that's what I've been doing.  What have you been doing?