Spring Optimism and Travels

I'm heading out on Thursday to Boston for a conference and tomorrow morning brings the return of the daily commute and meetings. Periodically I have ideas of how I'll be done with all of my outstanding projects at the end of x holiday or y date, but that has yet to happen other than the projects that had specific gift deadlines and here it is January 3 and AudioGirl is still Christmas-presentless.  We'll have to celebrate a late Epiphany when I get home.

There was some quality time spent with the ballwinder and swift over the past few days. Other than the gray ball in the back, those were all skeins before I started. I have plans for socks, some baby items, the brown yarn goes with a project that has been lounging around since last summer, etc.

This yarn, of course, doesn't include the quite a few works in progress I dug out from around the apartment over break as well. Those are in a giant ribbon basket from the Incredibly Patient Mother and yes, it's quite a pile. Especially as several of them really should have been done a couple of years ago. I need to dig out pictures of them. Or perhaps just actually work on them and get them back in rotation. One of the two.

Combined though, those are my projects and goals for spring. The things I expect I should be able to make serious progress on, might even finish before Stash Dash 2016. (Yes, I'm snickering over that probable impossibility too.) And emptying this bin would give me room in the stash to tuck away my project bags.

Probably the most interesting skein I wound up was a BMFA Rare Gems that just finally made it into stash admission.

It wound up with a light and dark side:

I'm not totally sure what it's going to be yet. My original plan hasn't turned up any patterns that I like--at least none that I want to haul around on a plane or train. 

There should be a fair amount of knitting time ahead. In addition to a pair of socks, I've got two other projects planned for my upcoming trip. One will require a pattern and concentration, for those times where I have it, and the other will be mindless churning. But I do need to get out needles in the near future and assign project bags. 

Speaking of which, I got a couple new bags for Christmas. One of kind custom bags!!  More details as soon as I get pictures.  

For now, I have to go make Yorkshire Puddings.  That's become a new thing at Chez Hedgehog.