Socks Away

Yay! My fear of socks is conquered! With the help of a brilliant DIY guide from Annchen, plus this gorgeous yarn and a set of DPN's I have finally knitted my first pair of socks. The pattern is the International Sock of Doom and it's a surprisingly easy pattern and looks fab! I love rainbows, they feel so happy, just the thing for this grotty gray weather we're having at the moment. I think I need to find another way of casting off the toes though. I cast both rows off at the same time and it's made quite a chunky line there at the top. I'm not going to bother to redo these because they're my first and I love them, but for the next pair maybe I'll find a better way.

I'm really trying to finish the UFO's lying around the house. A UFO usually means it's a project that takes a slightly longer time than my usual ones and therefore gets subjected to my crafting ADD. The first of my current 'must finish' projects is my beaded goddess. Some of you may remember I made quite good headway with her during the summer, but she was put to one side once term started again and I became distracted by other things.

The other main thing is a cross stitch that my sister gave me years ago. This is what it will hopefully look like when it's finished.

It's a beautiful design, but I'm not a natural cross stitcher. I like fast results *lol* Another problem is that a small part of the material has attracted brick dust somewhere along the line, probably when my house was being reconstructed after flooding. I'm not really sure how to deal with this. Do I wash it now or should I wait till I'm finished to wash the whole thing in case washing it affects the thread colours. I don't know, maybe one of you cross-stitchers out there could advise me (Laural?)

I also have a dress I'm itching to make, McCall's 5317. I have the pattern, I've had it for over a year; I have the fabric, I now have a dress form, I just haven't had the time. I have two fabrics set aside for this pattern. One is a lovely black corduroy, which will make a nice wintery short dress kind of like this version, to wear with jeans, and the other is a gorgeous black Chinese silk brocade with a tiny coloured dragon motif running through it. You know I love me some dragons *lol* That will be for a longer 'dressy' dress. I've never really sewn with brocade, so I've been procrastinating with that one.

Next week I start my new job at the College, I'm also back at school, and yoga and belly dancing classes start up again, so if I don't have a bash at this pattern this weekend, it will probably be forgotten about again. I keep meaning to make some Thai wrap trousers, so maybe once I have my 'Lil Brother' out, I may be inclined to do those too.