Surprise!  We now live in Southern California; the Santa Clarita Valley to be exact.  I love it here so far, except that there are NO knitting shops anywhere.  They've all shut down over the past few years.  The closest one is about half an hour south

Then again, we're not dealing with the snow like Illinois and my home state of Maryland is.  A small price to pay depending on who you ask.

While I'm waiting to be accepted at CSUN, I've been using the free time to catch up on projects and getting re-acquainted with my wheel.  The really neat thing about living in our new place is, I get my own crafting table and space!  I'm working on getting an entire bedroom to myself, but for now the extra space is awesome.  I can leave my sewing machine out...yes I got a sewing machine.

I now own a Bernina Activa 220 and I've already made a small quilt with it.

I pieced it together and sent it away to be quilted.  This turned into a Christmas gift for my parents.

 

The Paintbox Hat way back in August was frogged because it was too big for Jake.  Instead, he got this.

I call it the Sunset hat, which is really the Pismo Hat.  Jake dyed this yarn back at the Midwest Fiber and Folk Art Festival.  He's not into socks, so I decided on this instead.  It's obviously a bit big for me, but it's a nice skullcap for Jake that doesn't keep him too warm.  We're in California now after all.  It's February and sixty degrees out as I write.

The decreases for the top make the hat a bit pointy, but it smooshes out when Jake wears it.

This is for a friend.

It is 50% complete, has cables, and is made with superwash.   That is all I will say about this...for now.

I also spun up some yarn that didn't fall apart...for the first time!

It's about 80 yards of 3-ply.  The white singles are wool and the green is alpaca.  I don't know how many stitches per inch I can get with it, but I'm determined to turn this into something.

I hope it holds up

Lastly, I've started my own Noro striped sock.  Jake picked out the colors.

This is a fun knit to watch because the colors gradually change.  I'll keep the cuff, heel, and toe as one yarn.  It's a little itchy to work with, but I'm certain it'll soften up a bit in the wash.

For those of you out in all of the snow, stay safe!

I frogged the Kristi socks.  The Acero splits too much for a project like Kristi, which is loaded with small cables.  I tried to persevere through it, but a few days ago I realized I haven't knit anything for two weeks.  Frogging the Kristi socks immediately fixed the problem.

Here is a progress photo of the 'Sekrit Project'.  The Ella Rae Superwash and soft and the project itself is almost mindless.  There are a few cables thrown in to keep it interesting.

I sort of hard an epiphany after frogging the Kristi socks.  I have a lot of variegated sock yarn.  A lot...  In fact, I should probably sell some (No, that wasn't my epiphany).  I don't want to sell any of it; a lot of it I picked out with Jake and I remember how almost each skein was purchased.  Picking out a perfect pattern for my sock yarn, especially when its variegated, is frustrating me.  I'm tired of trying.

I'll just knit plain vanilla socks.  No worrying about the pattern being lost in the coor and I don't care so much about pooling or identical socks.

I recently purchased some Creatively Dyed Calypso yarn from The Loopy Ewe.  I picked up the Promise colorway from the Calypso line.  I'm going straight to her booth at the Midwest Fiber Fair; I love her colors and she's really nice.  I started a Yarn Harlot plain vanilla sock and am enjoying knitting again.

 

The truth is that I had to frog my first attempt and start over again.  I was getting 9 stitches per inch instead of the 7.5 suggested on the ball band.  I had to add an extra tweleve stitches to cast on in order to compensate.

Is anyone else going to the Midwest Fiber Fair?