Mushroom Nook Sleeve and Vonnegut My brother and sisters got me a Nook for Christmas! Its sweet, so I busted out the sewing machine to sew a protective sleeve for it. Its been quite a while since I've used the sewing machine so the finishing is a bit rough in one or two places, but its functional and the mushroom fabric rocks!
I finished my Tin Woodsman's Socks this morning. I gave them a soak with my lavendar shampoo and am blocking them now. I made some sock blockers out of old wire hangars.
My latest project is the Woodsmans Socks, from Elizabeth Zimmermans Knitting Around. These are thick, heavy wool socks. I'm using Cascade eco-wool, which is undyed and minimally processed. 
I finished the first sock, it fits both Steven and I. Its very warm and surprisingly soft. I immediately cast on the second sock last night (best defense against single sock syndrome) so hopefully we'll have a finished pair of socks this week.
I've been on a double pointed needles kick, My last three projects have been skinny tube/dpn projects. And I'm really kind of enjoying it. People have all sorts of strategies for avoiding the use of dpns, including magic loop and knitting on 2 circular needles. Perhaps its because when I knit with dpns I use warm and more flexible wood needles instead of the nickel plated circs, but my hands seem to be enjoying the switch too.
I've seen a lot of archival pictures of knitters walking around, fetching water, etc. while knitting socks or mittens on a set of dpns. There was a device called a gully hook that you wore on your belt and it held your ball of yarn and you were free to walk around while knitting. Multitasking didn't start with the computer.
The project on Ravelry.
My first cabling project. Cables were a little tricky at first, but nothing to be intimidated by. And after a while fun to knit.
(Its hard to take a picture by yourself of two gloves in action. I finised these a few days ago. They are the ever-popular Dashing pattern from Knitty, knit in cascade heather yarn in the mallard colorway. )
I've worn these quite a bit around town, and they are nice and warm.
Notice the singular. Now I understand second sock syndrome. This is just a bootie sock, there are only about 2 inches of rib before I started the heel flap. The heel, turning the heel and picking up stitches were all a blast! I loved the tricky parts. Then I got to the foot, and knitting that seemed to take forever, around and around and around: granted I have large feet... Then I finished the toes, and suddenly the socks looked like mitten tops! I'll have to add the picture, it made me want to knit a pair of mittens. And on to the second sock, but--these kind of sag at the ankles so I may make a new pair with a smaller weight yarn. This was worsted: cascade 220, on size 6 needles..
It was a fun project, especially learning the new tricky parts, but it also made me think, I have a lot (A LOT) of wool socks from REI already, whereas what I really need is to knit some gloves and a sweater or two. And maybe I will come back to knitting socks in the spring and summer when small light weight knitting projects are handy.
I knit this for my nephew George, who loves playing with tractors, especially John Deere tractors! He seemed to love the hat and wore it inside whenever he was playing with his farm set.
For his birthday in the fall, I'm going to knit him a Christmas stocking with this same tractor pattern.
The tractor pattern comes from the book Hat Heads. I improvised the rest of the design. Half way through the tractor pattern I learned how to twist the two strands on the back of the needle, which is good because there are several places where one color is carried over 8 stitches (that means long floats in the back of the hat.) The technique I learned prevents this.
The yarn is spud and chloe, so its a washable wool/cotton blend.
