Cold weather items for warming weather

I'm a cold lady. No point in denying it. Come summer, when temps have risen anywhere from 75-90*, I will still be that person in jeans and a hoodie. As you can imagine, this has a profound effect on my clothing choices. I'm often complaining about being cold even when no one else is.

Enter the sweater.

 I've made 2 others at this point (pics and their sad story to come) but neither have made me nearly as happy as this one. Look at the pockets! Bright and sassy against a potentially boring blue. Up close the blue has a nice depth to it with hints of purple. The fit is fantastic. I do plan on reblocking the arms a bit but only because I would like a different drape in that area. It's heavy enough to keep me warm in the cooler weather of winter and fall but will be perfect for summer nights camping. Win-win in my book.

Doesn't make sense to cover my top half and leave my bottom half freezing. Enter some pretty basic socks. These were a trial despite being my own pattern. The first sock was done in rapid fire style. The second one languished. Which isn't a terrible thing but I had tried on the first one so much AND forgotten to write down various changes I made while knitting that the second one doesn't have the same fit in the cuff. It'll block out but this initial wear was irritating. I like my socks to fit a very specific way and small differences are noticeable to me. These bad boys are beyond perfect otherwise. As our weather warms up and the snow melts, my driveway becomes a swamp of slushiness. Within hours of finishing these my help was required in getting a car unstuck. Up to my knees in slushy soup, my pants and boots were soaked. When I finally came in I noticed that my feet and legs were not cold even with this being the case. Took my shoes off and the socks were easily double their weight from the amount of water they soaked up. I'd say they did their job.

Sweater:
Pattern: Hideaway
Yarn: Knit Picks
    Body: Wool of the Andes Superwash- Solstice Heather
    Pocket: Stroll Brights- Pucker
Size: S1

Socks:
Pattern: My own. Possibly coming soon!
Yarn: MadTosh: Vanilla Bean
Needles: 1, 3, and 5 (for bind off only).

Current Wips:
Broken Seed Stitch socks- possibly frogging these
Rainstorm Shawl- handspun (not my own)

And then it had been two years....

Lookit! Lookit my bunneh!

Obviously it's been quite some time since I've blogged. I won't pretend to have any excuses. I'm lazy. I didn't want to. It takes a fair amount of effort to compose a post. Pictures and oh so witty text. I'm lazy.

I'm working on that though. I have a new camera, am happy with the way life is going, and far more motivation.

The above bunny is one of 3 that got completed during warmer months. This one went to the middle offspring. Yarn look familiar? It might to anyone who has read here in years past. That is handspan I did to make longies for said child. I was rifling through a box looking for something unrelated and pretty soon I was elbow deep in itty bitty baby clothes that hadn't seen the light of day in years. Longies included. I brought them out, washed them, frogged them, and reset the yarn. As it sat there looking at me I had an idea.

It was coming up on summer break for them (meaning they would go spend 6 weeks with their dad) and I knew she wasn't thrilled with the idea. In fact, she was asking not to go. I had been trying to come up with something to send her to help ease her mind a bit, something that could comfort her. Along came this rabbit.

The body is handspun originally worn by her, the belly and tail is some random nonsense I had hanging around, and the heart (put there to remind her I love her, I know....cheesy) is some purple sock yarn. I did stuff it with wool but only because that's what I had on hand. I would have preferred cotton stuffing for washability but in the end, it was a perfect combo. So far, the only thing that needs fixed is an arm end worked its way out. I'll weave it back in once I'm done here.

Lookit! Lookit mah yarn!

And for good measure, some new (ish) handspun. This also was completed when the earth wasn't trying to freeze me to bits. See the green bush? This happens when I'm not cold.

The yarn itself isn't miraculous. It was some leftover felting fiber I had bought when I bought a needle felting kit. I don't like felting or felted items. I don't know why I bought the kit. I ran the colors through the drum carder to create some randomness (I think there were 8 colors total) and then got to spinning. The original plan was to make it a 3-ply (like everything else I do) but a tester of that turned out fairly ugly. The colors lost their brightness and the yarn became even more rough than it already was. I left it as a single in the end. It is semi felted. On purpose. When I leave my yarns as a single, they are usually fairly thin. Some spots are weaker by default of not having the added strength that another ply gives. The buddy system works for yarn too! I recently knit this up into a custom piece. I'll share that later. Part of returning to blogging means making sure my pictures are all in one place. They aren't.

Current WIPS:
Hideaway sweater
Broken Seed Stitch socks
Rainstorm shawl- handspun (not my own)
Basic socks- my own pattern
My mother had me tested- spinning