Casting On

There I was, happily spinning in my warm living room - and then the sun went down and it got cold.  Spinning always ends when my nose gets cold.  I think it's just me because my son says it's warm in here.  Must be his youth that keeps him warm.

What I'm spinning is Crown Mountain BFL in the American Spirit colorway.  I'm almost done, but I must admit, the fiber came in pencil roving form and I should have broken the fiber in half to make a two ply yarn.  Since I didn't, I guess it's going to get chain plied.  

After the spinning session ended, I attempted to knit something.  Everything I cast on was a massive fail.  The yarn was disagreeable with the pattern, the pattern was disagreeable with me, the mojo was full on for something, but there was no desire to shop in my stash.  

A few days ago, I ended up doing a 'what's on top' stash dive and found some cashmere I purchased from Sarah's Yarns years ago, and I used the leftover Wandering Wool yarn from my Stitch Surfer socks, and came up with the Ute Socks by Nancy Bush in the Favorite Socks book:

The cashmere is so old that it breaks easily, so I only used it for the leg of the sock, the foot of the sock will be in the tougher Wandering Wool yarn.  I should have made the cuff longer, but the socks are for me (not suitable for gifting) and I alone am aware of the care they'll need to have any life at all.

While I love making socks, a peek inside my leftovers bag revealed almost an entire skein of some Frabjous Fibers that I used to make my son some socks.  Why is my hand spun sitting in that bag at all?  So I matched it up with some white Lion Brand merino and cast on the Haberdashery Cowl from Interweave Knits Fall 2013:

Believe it or not, I cast it on this morning and I would have finished it tonight if I didn't have to do stuff like laundry.  It's a fast knit, it's pretty and while it won't be finished by morning in time to go out for my coffee, it will be finished if I have errands to run tomorrow afternoon - in the freezing cold.

Lastly, Little Miss Kitty is not happy with me today.  She is upset that she wasn't able to get any lap time because of my knitting.  Her revenge came in the form of refusing to make eye contact with me:

Mind you, she wouldn't look at me or crawl on me today, but she also won't leave my side either.  Right now she's snoring next to me on my bed.  Pobresita!  There's room in my heart to love Miss Kitty and my knitting, but today there was only room for one on my lap, and the knitting won.

The stash down is still on - I haven't purchased any yarn since Vogue Knitting Live, but I've been sorely tempted by all of the sales on sock yarn.  For the record, it's killing me!