Thank you, Spin-to-Knit Pal!

A great big Thank You is in order for my lovely handspun yarn swap pal Autumn! Is this a wonderful package or what? She spun some awesome merino single in a beautiful purple colorway. And she sent lots of other stuff too! Let's see...there's tempting camel fiber, which I simply could not wait to start spinning, two bars of (British!!) candy, two wee turtles for my collection, an adorable elephant tape measure, a funky polka dot cone (Autumn, is this a bobbin for winding yarn onto?) and a postcard of the King himself. I think Autumn must be a bit psychic because I just finished spinning some lilac fleece that I got at Springwater:
It's approx. 175 yards of a fingering-ish weight single spun from 2.6 oz. of fleece. I think if I knit it double stranded, it'll work really well with my pal's merino.

The Thuja socks are done:
Pardon the devil-dog green eyes. My doggie may be a scottie, but I guess he likes celebrating St. Patty's Day too.

I worked on this on the way over the weekend:
It's a Broadripple sock in Cascade Fixation from my stash. The pattern's nice but my hands aren't loving the yarn. The cotton gives it an unpleasant stiff feeling, plus the elastic contracts, making the piece just a bit too small to be comfortably knit with 12" circs. I knit about 5 inches of the leg before taking a break. I may have to knit this sock a bit at a time, or switch to magic loop with really long circulars.

I think I'm going to take the Reversible Cables class at Stitches Midwest. It's a half day class on a subject I like, which will give me a chance to take my time at the Stitches Market. As tempting as that two day sweater class was, it would be just plain wrong to stay cooped up in a convention center when there's family to see and places to visit (and local foods to eat).

Oh my gods, I was pretty stunned at what happened on BSG last night. When that viper exploded, I just about dropped my knitting. I was waiting for a parachute, or a resurrection ship, or...an anything.