An afternoon of fiber arts [knitting]

Yesterday evening, I got to wondering whether there are any other knitters out there who wind up saying up past their bedtimes to finish a certain knitting project.

I didn't wind up finishing last night, but this afternoon instead of going on a long bike ride, I finally finished this vest.



It either took a year and five months, or just five months, depending on what counts. I started the project in January of 2014, but eventually realized something was off. It was probably my fault, for failing to knit up a gauge swatch, and for deciding to knit the thing in the round instead of as front and back panels. Regardless, I had to frog several inches and start over because attempt #1 was too big, and it took me until my Grandpa's funeral this past December to get started again.

One of the other hitches was the yarn. I came up with this project as a way to use a skein of blue camel's wool yarn that my parents had given me from the Snow Leopard Trust, and to also use up a nice handspun skein of yarn that a friend from Minneapolis had given to me.

Well, as I knitted up attempt #1, I soon realized that two skeins would be insufficient. I didn't have any way to match either of the preexisting colors, so I wound up considering a different skein of cream-colored yarn that was given to me, and buying two other skeins of yarn, a hand-dyed red and the tan you see pictured (although I think I'm going to call it "burlap-colored"). It also came from the Snow Leopard Trust. So now I have two other odd skeins of yarn instead, although they're slightly less odd than the ones I used up.

The striping, as well as variations in yarn quality, meant that I had to sew in a LOT of loose ends at the end, a tedious step that is one of my least favorites:



But it is done. I can only show you the vest, and not how it fits, because it's still damp from blocking. The fit looks like it will be fine overall, though, so I'd give this pattern a thumbs-up (a free pattern from Ravelry).

So, hurrah for finishing that project.

Then I looked in my yarn box. The next thing I want to deal with is a pair of moth-eaten socks that belong to scrottie:



It's hard to tell from the photo, but these are so moth-eaten that it would be difficult to repair them by sewing up the holes. I had been thinking about noting down the pattern, and then frogging and re-knitting them, so as a test for how that might go, I went ahead and frogged a misshapen hat that I crocheted for my sister years ago, that she gave back to me because she didn't have a use for it (and I can't blame her):



Now I'm not so sure I want to attempt frogging the socks, especially given how fragmented the strands will be, due to the moth holes. I wound up tearing a lot of the fibers in the hat, to take it apart, and I suspect that would be even worse for the socks, given how much heat and moisture they've experienced.

Looking in my yarn box was overwhelming. As a PSA - please, unless there are really special extenuating circumstances, DO NOT GIVE ME ANY MORE YARN (a recent gift from dichroic counts as a wonderful extenuating circumstance). I HAVE LOTS. I just don't have ideas for what to do with it, and I think I have about a 50% success rate at this point in terms of knitting nice, useable items. I don't know how to show you my "stash" on Ravelry, but I've listed almost all of my yarn there.

I still have some of the same grey yarn that I used for sytharin's erstwhile hat, the two balls pictured towards the upper left in this photo, because I got the yarn because it was pretty and soft, not because I knew what to do with it:



Thing is, it's super-soft stuff, and I don't know what works best for socks, because I really haven't knitted many socks, but I suspect it isn't the super-soft stuff. S really likes those moth-eaten socks because they are nice, thick wool that will keep his feet warm in the dead of winter. So I'm curious to know whether anyone else has any ideas or insights into how to proceed.