Socks and Dye days..

 A dye day had been planned at our guild, acid dyes on  protein fibres.  Long skeins for self striping sock yarn was one of the suggestions.  I was going to dye roving, but decided that spun yarn would be easier.  I started spinning the roving and realized I'd not likely be done in time.  I ended up purchasing some suitable sock yarn and skeined it into the required huge skeins on my warping board.  I did two, one 15 yard and one 12 yard skein.   Then I packed up my skeins, dye gloves, apron and checked the time I had to be there, only to find that the dye day was the day before and I had missed it.  sigh...

I did finish the bright orange socks last week.  Just when I realized that I wasn't making any progress whatsoever, on the second sock , I also realized that I hadn't knitted in a couple of days. I picked up those needles and they seemed to knit themselves.  I wonder if there are knitting elves who come to one's house in the evening to finish knitting up the easy parts of socks.  That's certainly what it felt like.  I had planned on doing the long repetitive knitting at meetings, but I ended up mainly have only the counting parts to do, which is at home knitting.  I can knit repetitvily and still pay attention, but when I have to count, it's time to pay attention to only what I'm doing.    They are certainly going to be sunshine for my feet on grey winter days.

I did get the superwash merino sock yarn spun.  I have approximately 320 yards, so I'm hoping it is enough.  I should know by now that for handspun sock yarn, I want more than 100 grams per pair.  I have more roving, so I can always spin more if I decide I want the margin of safety.  I had been worried about the yarn  being too thin.  I adjusted my thickness and while it means there are a few yards of not perfect yarn, the rest is a suitable size for socks as a two ply.