Winter Hope with Sunshine

I feel like this winter with its terrible, bone-aching cold and excessive snow has made everything harder. I have no desire to go outside. At all. I have no desire for human interaction. I just want to snuggle up in my cozy bed and stay warm as much as is possible. That of course is not realistic and then comes a beautiful day like today. The sun is shining brightly, the temperature has risen to the point where snow is actually melting and my heart is soaring. It doesn't mean I don't need some color this winter though. Color works so well in my knitting that it seems natural to knit something brilliant, eye-searing and bright.

Over a year ago in the nom of the month club I received this unusual skein. It's called Darling Clementine and since I'm not much of an orange person, I wasn't sure what to do with it. I started and ripped it several times and ended up deciding around Christmas time that it would be socks and that was the end of it. After finishing my holiday commitments I cast on and started knitting away. The other day I finally finished the first sock (somewhat delayed by an addiction to my spinning wheel and also to the wrist pain plaguing me last month) I feel like this project has gone on for a long time. It hardly matters though, I'm loving the results. A little unusual and I'm not sure what I will wear the finished socks for but they'll be there, in the sock drawer, reminding me that the sun does come out sometimes.
I also have a little plan for something else. Earlier my local knitgroup and I were discussing the fact that most of us had not tried steeking and were interested in the technique. We decided a low-commitment project would be a good idea so we found Steek This Coffee Cozy and decided those of us interested in trying out the technique would each knit to the point of steeking and get together for moral support and cut our knitting to bits! Our scheduled cutting party is our usual knit night, February 19th. I finished the main knitting last week.

I made a few changes and I'm so happy with the result, I can't wait to get it finished all the way! I used color A (Knit Picks Wool of the Andes in Peapod) for the ribbing and the 'pop' color on the fair isle chart. I used color B (Knit Picks Wool of the Andes in Marina) for the background of the fair isle chart and color C (Patons Classic Wool Merino in Aran or undyed) for the other fair isle color. I didn't use the 5 colors called for and I really love my result so I'm going to stick with it. Now I'll just count down the days until we cut. Eep! That's a little bit scary.