Hedgehog Knitting: To Florida and Back Again

The Philosopher and I went to Florida for a week. He does most of the driving when we're in Florida--it's his home state--and this time he did all of it, which afforded me some serious extra knitting time. I packed four works in progress and a spare skein of yarn and that was absolutely the correct amount to take.

(Pauses to mention the cat who is determined to sit on the mouse, the keyboard, me, everything today. Gypsy has been velcro-cat since we got home and refuses to let me out of her sight while I'm in the apartment.)

On the plane ride down I worked on the Firework shawl. Skein 3, while much brighter, was starting to stretch out forever and I knew I wouldn't be able to haul it all of the places that we were going to go. But that was WIP #1.

WIP #2 had a deadline. My committee Vice-Chair had a baby in April and I wanted to usher him into his Chair year appropriately. Also, baby sweaters :)

(Photo by Mike, used with permission)

I realized after we got back that I'd forgotten to take a picture of the final finished sweater, so this is from my VC. The sweater is Flax Light, knit out of a skein of BMFA lightweight in the Frozen Valley colorway that was specially dyed for The Loopy Ewe earlier this year. I can't believe it just sat waiting for me to finish a sleeve since April. But it's done and off to Baby N, who should be just the right size for it when it starts to get cooler this fall. I immediately wanted to cast on another one this pattern, it's a great use for sock yarn when you're a touch burned out on socks. It says I'd need 400 yards--but it looks like I used closer to 350. Not sure if I could make it all the way through the next size up, would probably need to plan for different yarn for the ribbing.

Project #3 was a pair of socks that has been languishing since January. I reached some point on sock 2 and just stopped. Probably so I could work on Loopy Academy Spring. The LA deadlines tend to send many other htings by the wayside but it does set me up nicely for stash dash and a bit for Christmas.

I worked on these on the drive from Ft. Lauderdale to Orlando (we were staying with the Philosoparents first, then off to conference). And you can see the travel centipedes came with us.

In fairly short order they were done. These two projects bring me up to 1304 meters for Stash Dash 2016 so far. Right now the 3K seems like it's th most achievable goal for me. Which I'm a little disappointed by. I though I would really get through 5-7K this summer easily. Granted, I have another pair of socks that only needs a toe, one that needs a foot on Sock 2 and I have nearly 2K in the shawl but still... It's July and I'm not at 3K.

WIP #4, not pictured here, is the Indy500 Socks. They were worked on. The only thing I didn't end up using was the spare skein. And it's a good thing as there was a knitting needle emergency and my size 5 needles had to go live in someone else's room for the duration of the conference. (How many people do *you* know at a conference can loan you at least 3 sizes of knitting needle, circulars and DPNS, scissors, and a darning needle?)

By the end of the conference I was done with Skein 3 and in the Fort Lauderdale airport I wound Skein 4.

I joined the skein on the plane and got a row or two in. At this point, each row is taking the better part of an hour it seems. I haven't been timing it because that will just make me sad. But the move to the ruffle, my yarn scale tells me, should be in about 20 grams, if I'm going by Martina's numbers.