Pics of the W.I.P.s

I got out the camera to take some pictures of what I am working on and hope to finish as past of this KAL. These orange socks are made of my own hand-painted sock yarn. I use powdered drink mixes and I love this color combination. The orange is Clover Valley Orange Drink that I got at the Dollar General Store. It gives a great Orange Crush/Tang shade of orange. The purple is grape Mix-ade from Aldi, which came out a muted wine color. The stripping comes out to just about a round per color, so the colors switch almost every round. You can see a narrow spiral of orange that wraps around the leg of the sock.

The pattern is the Basic Sock Pattern from the Knitter's Handy Book of Patterns by Ann Budd. I love that book and it is one of my favorite sock patterns. As you can see, the first sock is completed and I have started the 2nd sock.

Next up is a pair of cotton socks made from Regia Cotton Sock Yarn. I received it as part of my first HSKS kit. This is based on the After Bertha spiral tube sock pattern from Socks, Socks, Socks! But rather than doing a tube sock, I am making a regular top-down sock using the spiral pattern on the leg instead of ribbing on the leg and spiral on the foot. The first sock is complete and the 2nd is started. This has been sitting in the project pile for a while, so I would like to make some progress on it.

The last pair of socks is a zig zag pattern that I am making up on my own. The ribbing moves back and forth along the leg of the sock. The self stripping sock yarn doesn't show that off well. I think it would show better on a solid sock yarn. I may only do 4 or 5 inches of the zig zag ribbing and then switch to stockinette for the rest of the sock. Fortunately I don't find knitting self-stripping yarn in stockinette stitch boring. I guess I am dim enough to find that fascinating...LOL!

This last project isn't a sock, but it is a swap project that I am working on with a deadline of January 20th. The Men Who Knit website hosts an annual Scarf Exchange and after hearing how much fun was had last year I decided to jump on board this year. Of course all the guys are very competitive, so no one wants to be out-done.

The pattern is the Muffler from Men In Knits by Tara Jon Manning. It is a ribbed cable pattern, which I love doing. The yarn is a yummy alpaca/wool mix and the picture do not do it justice. It is a deep wine purple with flecks of deep colors in it. It is very soft. The first skein gave me about 22" of scarf and I have 3 skeins, so it should end up about 5.5" when finished.

It's kind of funny, because this is a first swap for a lot of these guys and they are stumped as to what to include. But the old swapping pros had been free with advice.
And in case you think this is all I'm working on... I'm trying to finish my 2nd Ribbed Stripped Scarf. I'm dong an Indie Artist Market on Sunday and I'd like to have both to have on my table on Sunday. Hoping we get lots of holiday gift shoppers looking for something hand-made to give for the holidays.