I’m back in the saddle knitting for Afghans for Afghans – the current campaign is perfect for summer knitting – hats, mittens, and socks!  So, I began by using up bits of yarn I had dyed for a bunch of socks a couple of summers ago for some mittens:

Oh, and these are done except for thumbs!

And then put in a giganto (for me) order of wool (Cascade 22o and Cascade Eco) from WEBS, taking advantage of their annual sale – Cascade was a bargain compared to the upcoming prices.  Now I’m having fun with color.  These socks are based on a stitch pattern in Sensational Socks:

Since I’m using worsted weight, doing stranded knitting for the foot seemed like it would probably be not very fun to wear, so I just did some color blocking.  And it turns out that in the size I made, I used almost exactly the same amounts of each color.  If the scale can be believed, I can get two pairs of socks out of two skeins of 220.  Not bad!

The slog-knit continues in sloggy fashion.  The back is done, I have just a bit to go on the fronts, and then I can knit the shoulders together and block to see if the size is anywhere near right – I’m a bit concerned that it will be too big.  Maybe that’s why it’s not done – I fear the answer.

Last Saturday I got to go to a class at a local LYS with Stephen West, of Westknits fame:

And it was a lovely time — I got to go with a friend, met a podcaster that I listen to (waves to KnittyBarb of 2 Knit Lit Chicks), learn some great tricks about edges and shaping of shawls, see a ton of samples of his shawls, and a couple of hats, fondle the lovely yarns at A Verb for Keeping Warm, and perhaps most extraneously, eat a cupcake with maple flavoring and bacon from the store next door. Seriously, I hardly think a knitting event could get much better! Even the possible traffic woes from some construction near the Golden Gate bridge that we feared might delay us did not materialize.

Out of that event, I think I will be making the pogona shawl out of the other skein of Wollmeise that my lovely blog reader Liesl sent me last summer after the derailed trip to Sock Summit.

Which is a good thing, because I am making another sweater that will likely be much more fun to wear than it is to knit. I’m knitting Hey, Teach! in Rowan Summer Tweed, which, when blocked, has a lovely hand and drape, but in knitting is about as fun as knitting straw.

It reminds me why I seem to have fewer summer sweaters than winter ones – the knitting just isn’t the same tactile experience. While the pattern has you knit it in pieces, I am knitting it in one piece to the armholes, and I’m finally to the point of beginning the ribbing (9.5 inches which will turn into 10 inches after blocking).  It is a slog of a knit, so it is a good thing that I’m a project knitter, because this would be hopeless if I were a process knitter.