Bottlenecks

In sock making, there is no doubt that closing the toes is a bottleneck in my little production line.

In sock yarn making, the bottleneck is skein winding.

At the moment....both bottlenecks are in effect!

I've wound enough yarn of my latest colour series to shoot photos, and I've even knit a few pair with these colours, but there is much winding left to do. Some I'll wind into balls for sock making, and others I'll re-skein and take to market.

In any event, the dye work on this colourway is almost complete. I dyed an extra batch of pale Clay that I am going to over-dye.

And the rest, you can see above: from left to right: Island Blue, Mulberry, Golden Pear, Clay, and Mouse Grey. Laying cross ways are the painted versions combing the 5 colours. The top skein laying across was vat dyed in left over Island Blue after hand painting in the 5 colours.

One of the reasons I'm behind in my skein winding....

Here are two of the, um, several more pairs of Welsh Country Stockings I've been knitting (adapted for the sock machine from Nancy Bush's dpn pattern and using Jenny Deter's fair isle technique).

I knit both these pairs the Verdun 47, 72 needle cylinder. The top pair, Natural and Cranberry -looks a bit like the Mulberry skein in the top photo, but next to one another you'd see the Cranberry has different undertones - in size Medium +.

The Natural and Evergreen pair is size Large.

I haven't knit any size Medium socks in this pattern yet.... I have to sort out how to do it first. You know I knit my size Medium socks on a 54 needle cylinder, but the little Fair Isle pattern has a 4 stitch repeat, so won't work with 54 stitch sock.

Hmmm.

Contemplation is another bottleneck!