Sock Fatigue

I am suffering from Sock Fatigue.  I have one more pair in the Tour de Sock and then I am finished.  I believe the cause of it is the two Ravelry contest that I have done back to back.  I think there was perhaps two weeks between each contest for some down time knitting.  That wasn’t enough time of down time.  Another mitigating factor was the year of socks I signed up for last November that started in January.  Let’s just say, I will have knitted a minimum of 14 pairs of socks since the beginning of this year after this last one.  They were not plain Jane vanilla socks.  Oh no, these were socks with ribbles (that’s ribbed cables that are reversible), stranded colorwork, mosaic knitting. lace, beads, regular cables, cables made because of a throw of a dice, alternate construction with strips of knitting joined together with k2tog or ssk, toe, cuff down, and/or short row heels.  Thank goodness there is only one more to go that will start later today.   And it's a cabled brioche stitch sock!  Oh My! Are They Out Of Their Minds!?!?!  I think I will either take a long break from socks or drive myself crazier and start designing them.  I have seen almost every design element and construction that has ever been invented for socks in these contests during the last two years.   

I did drop out of the Tour De Fleece.  In that contest, you needed to spin and photo your spinning for each day the Tour de France competitors ride.  I started but didn’t make a week.  One reason for that is the other contest I was doing at the same time (see above).  The other reason is I’m a rank beginner spinner.  I had a half day class on spinning two years ago and then nothing.  I got carried away to try this because I found the box of hand spun I had a friend spin for me.  It is awful.  I remember the fiber I sent was nice and soft and fluffy.  I got back some hard and scratchy art yarn that was worse than my first spinning attempt.  I thought I would try to make this stuff into something usable.  I undid the one ball of this handspun so I would get to the single strand that was spun.  I then tried to re-spin it, stretching out the large lumpy almost un-spun spots to a thinner strand.  I think I only managed to over-spin the single.  It’s still hard and scratchy though.  I’m thinking about taking the other single from the ball I separated, skeining it and soaking it in Eucalan or maybe crème rinse to see if it softens.  I went into it with unusable yarn and I’m not sure I did anything to improve it.  More experiments are needed.  Perhaps I need to get all the original spin out first and then re-spin it.  Oh that will be painful.  I’m not even sure I can do that.  I don’t know if she set the spin or not.  I’m not even sure what to do to set the spin.  I need to do some research.  I do know I like spinning on the drop spindle.  I’m still a bit uncoordinated and have dropped my drop spindle but the twirling of the fibers into a strand of yarn is mesmerizing.  There is a rhythm and flow to the act.  I still have to learn how to draft the fiber better but may this is something to get my fiber fix and not knit so many socks. 

I am hoping I have not overcommitted myself for the Ravellenic games.  That’s the new name for the Ravelympics after the USOC threatened to sue Ravlery because of the misuse of their trademarked name, Olympics.  This is the same USOC  that has deals with Ralph Lauren (for clothes made in China and other sweat shops in third world countries), McDonalds (where I doubt you would see an Olympic athlete)  Coke (I doubt an Olympic athlete drinks much Coke, even Diet Coke) etc.  They are there to raise money to support the athletes but also to line their pockets, I think.  I’m sure no one working at the USOC is doing it for free.  I’m sure Mitt Romney got a nice salary from the USOC for working on the Salt Lake games in the 90’s.   Back to the subject, Gail.  I will not be making socks for any of my challenges.  No, siree-bob.   Silly me has internally committed to doing 3 shawls in the 17 (?) day the Olympics take place. 

1.       Finish the Poinsettia shawl that I ripped back due to a dropped stitch only found during blocking.

2.       Make the new Stephen West Mystery Shawl in two Wollmeise yarns colors to be determined.

3.       Make the Morgana shawl.  It only starts with like 300 stitches or something like that.

I really need to have my head examined.