No fooling here today. I’ve been working on my spring cleaning and making slow but sure progress. It may take me a full year to get this house cleaned but I decided one cabinet or two at a time and that makes the bites more manageable. One or two days of all-day cleaning sounds horrible. I’ve gotten three filthy cabinets cleaned and have a few things to get rid of and that’s progress. Today I even found my dough hook that I thought I’d left behind when I moved to Florida in 2007. Woo! Hoo! I can make bread now. (Like that’s stopped me before.)

And I have a new FO. I finished my I’m so Basic Socks. The pattern is free on Ravelry. This is one of Summer Lee’s patterns. I also own both of her books and have had fun reading them. I’ve made a couple of other pairs of her socks, too. This pair used a sock set from Frabjous Fibers that I picked up on sale at the shop. I liked working with it well enough but I wasn’t wowed by the yarn. And the socks came out nicely. I followed the “large” sock size (72 sts) and they fit a little more loosely than I’d like. I actually like a bit of negative ease on my socks (I like them pretty tight on my foot) and these don’t have enough. Next time, I’ll cast on for the medium size … well, I’ve already done that.

Upon finishing the I’m so Basic socks, I cast on the Escher Socks, also by Summer Lee. These are a stranded colorwork pair of socks in her Sock Obsession book. I am knitting the medium size and using stashed yarn. The cream color is deeply stashed merino and nylon blend that I bought a bag of when I thought I might like to hand-dye yarn. The contrasting color is a ball of Crazy Zauberball that I’ve had in stash forever, too. It may be from one of the yarn selection bags that I got when I did the Year of Techniques classes with Jen Arnall-Kulliford back in the day. I took a photo of the outside and the inside. They’re really potato chippy (I can’t put them down! As a result, my left arm/hand is not feeling great and I’m trying to give it some rest, massaging the muscles and remembering to stop and stretch. It’s better today but I am being very careful.

I’m going to cast on my daughter’s sweater, too. Maybe today or this weekend. I am also signed up for two KALs. One is the Wooly Thistle Shawl KAL and the other is the Beary Cozy Gnome Mystery KAL. I’ve got a bag of fingering weight yarn left overs, bits and bobs, that I will share with my co-worker friend, Carol, who’s doing it with me. Care to join, dear readers? It starts April 15th, if memory serves.

I’ve decided that for the shawl KAL I’ll be knitting Gudrun Johnson’s Hansel Hap (half) which I have enough Jamieson/Jamieson & Smith yarn for in my stash (notice a theme?) I am going to have to fudge the main color just a bit. I have three 25 gram balls of a light gray for the MC/center section and I will need more of the MC for the border, too, and I found a different light gray that’s one of the natural colors. For my contrasting colors I’m using two blues, a white and teal/turquoise.

Gone knitting!