Monochrome (but not Green)

I don't know how it has happened that I've managed to keep my projects all in one color range. I'm not usually the type of person who cares about matchiness, nor am I the type of person to obsess over a particular color to the extent that I will only wear or work with it. I thought the green thing was a happenstance.

Perhaps I was wrong.

After finishing the green sweater and the pair of green socks, I cast on for another sweater. I even posted a teaser last time -- blue! I like blue. I don't love blue. Other than my jeans, I don't even wear too much blue. So a blue sweater might be a good thing. Fill a hole in the wardrobe. So I took the beautiful blue Squoosh yarn and cast on:



I'm a good four inches farther along now than when I took these photos. The pattern is Mary Jane, from Twist Collective. The yarn is Squoosh's Merino Cashmere Sport, in Oil Slick. This is another nice and quick pattern, although I'm making some modifications as I go (e.g., NO puff sleeves, please). The pattern calls for short sleeves, but I think how long my sleeves end up will be determined by 1) how much yarn I have; and 2) how ready I am to move on to another pattern.

Until recently, I didn't really see the point of short sleeved sweaters. If I'm cold enough to wear a sweater, then I'm cold enough to want sleeves. But I'm trying to be open-minded and try new things. Be fashion-forward, as they say. (If you knew me in real life, you'd laugh at the idea of me being fashion-anything.)

And after my frustrated spinning interlude last weekend, the interlude that produced the cute pink and green singles, I've gone back to the spinning project I was working on:



(One with flash, one without.) The return of the blue Bugga fiber. I love this fiber. And look, it's blue! I'm spinning three bobbins of singles, which I will then ply together, hopefully getting a nice, squooshy three-ply yarn that I can use for socks. I didn't do anything organized or scientific to get this ready or to spin it. I just took the length of fiber and divided it as evenly as I could into three pieces. I split each piece in half and then grab off chunks and spin as is, or sometimes, depending on my mood, I split those chunks in half again. There's no color progression that I'm trying to maintain or follow, so randomness is ok.

The fiber reminds me of a sky-study. It has bright blues for spring skies, deep dark summer blues, white for clouds and greys to grey-purples for rainy and stormy skies.

The spinner is still irking me. When I finish the third bobbin and get this plied up, the spinner is going back to the manufacturer for a check-up.

Soon the newest installment of the Cookie A sock club should arrive, and I'll laugh if it's blue.

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I can't believe it's April already. Spring is really sneaking up on me.


(blossom from my plum tree)

Soon I'll blink and the school year will be over. They're going faster and faster as the boys get older. I'm sure there will be a lot of angst and depression this summer as Sr. Jr. gets ready for high school. I'm not ready to have him be so close to leaving the house! I suspect he's anxious about what high school holds in store for him. The gang from middle school is splitting up and there will be a whole new bunch of kids for him to meet and get to know. Some of them will be friends from elementary school, some will be entirely new.

He's definitely pulling away, adolescent-style. It makes me sad, even though I know it's necessary.

Ugh, if I'm this bad now, imagine how I'll be four years from now, when I'm crying about how my baby is going off to college?