The Thing to Queue

By the looks of my Ravelry friend's activity, the next "big thing" pattern has appeared:

It was pretty funny because I headed over to Ravelry after I had read Ashley's post about her Bird in Hand mitts. My friends activity page looked just like hers, only with Swirly Mittens everywhere. I admit, I hopped on the bandwagon and added it to my queue also. Swirls = love.

For actual knitting content, you already saw the Turret Socks, but I also managed to finish 98% of a glove and half a sock. Lucky you were not sitting in the seat behind me on the flight down as I was kicking myself the whole way. For the Sock Hop Sock, for some reason I brought the leftovers from the first sock and not the full skein to make the second sock. I had the leftovers used up and about 3/4 of a cuff done on the first leg of the flight down. Well, I figured then I would work on hubby's Scuba Gloves. The first glove was in sight of being done and I ran out of yarn. (See a theme developing?) I'm not sure if it was fate just telling me to work on the Turret Sock exclusively, but whatever it was, never again will I go on a trip with only one skein of yarn for a project! Everything worked out ok though - the Turret sock got done, and when we returned home, I managed to finish the Scuba Glove.

Gloves are hard. Hubby's hand is wide and kind of short, so I kept trying it on to get the fingers right. After about five tries, I think I have it. Onto glove number two and some reading on duplicate stitch so I can put the Scuba flag on the back of the hand.

Since we've arrived home, I've also managed to complete both sleeves for my yoke sweater. I used the provisional cast on as I want to do the cuffs after I'm done (yarn shortage worries).

I'm really happy with how it's turning out so far. Tonight I hope to join the sleeves and start the yoke. The pattern is finally picked out and the colors all ready to go.

The light blue is some Patons Classic, the orange will be doubled Trekking and the cream is some Debbie Bliss aran. All I am proud to say are stash yarns! The light blue is the only one I have some concerns about having enough.

For all you yoke knitters, did you do short rows on the back of your sweater a la EZ? I've read some patterns that have it, some that don't. Looking for opinions. I'm also wondering how far up from joining the arms I should start my colorwork. I know it depends on how wide the pattern is, so I plan on a little knitty math to figure out row gauge, etc and decide where to put it. This should be the fun part. After all that plain color round and round knitting, I'm looking forward to a little change!

For me, I'm really excited that knitting is fun again. There was a little slump not too long ago which I know we all go through from time to time. The yoke sweater, some test knitting that is on the way, and a future project waiting in the wings all have me wishing I could knit faster....it's a great feeling!