slow

It's been a spectacularly unproductive year. Not for lack of work, of course, but every time I get near the end of something I seem to skip to the next thing that needs a lot of work.

I did re-submit my paper on LIRGs with some edits, so that's feeling good. and gave a successful presentation on some dissertation work (hmm, next up I need those graphs that are dependent on theta or r). I have a new goal of turning that presentation/work into a viable paper draft by the end of the month. March is going to be busy

As for the crafting side of things, it's the same. Lots of stuff started and worked on.  Only one thing got finished, and that's a pair of socks I started at least a year ago. It doesn't help that it's dark and catching un-sucky pictures of things once I get home from work is a big challenge.

Oh, wait, I did do some spinning! and I finished a project, 8oz/2 braids 2plied together.

here's the first braid, before it was spun. Finn fiber from Three Waters Farm in the colorway Child's Play. The yellow light of the house does not capture the colors perfectly well; that is a lighter pink, not screaming neon pinkorange, and the teal is a bit stronger, but overall it's pretty accurate.

I plied that with this stuff to the right. This is Targhee from Three Waters Farm in the Cheerful Disposition colorway. Again, it's yellowed out, but this pic is pretty accurate. The blues and purple are a little bit bluer, but that bright orange/yellow is in there and the teal and that blue-brown. They're not perfectly matched, but there's some decent overlap in the colors, and I thought the gray in the above fiber would work well with the dark blue/brown in this fiber.

and here's the finished product below! skein 1, flurfy and pretty nice!

and skein 2, sorry for the blurry pic. There's more contrast in this skein, including a big section of bright orange and dark blue that I don't like. 

They are both, however, pretty dreadfully underplied. I definitely did what I thought the wheel and fiber wanted to do, but now that they are done I can tell the wheel was pulling the plied yarn in too quickly compared to how much ply-twist I was putting in. In order to fix this I should've loosened the knob that controls the tension, or had a better ratio between my bobbin and my whorl. Now that I think about it, though, I think my friend pointed out that I was using the "high speed" end of my bobbin to tension. Normally this is better for spinning, I think, skinnier yarns. So it should be easier to put the right amount of twist in next time when I turn the bobbin round so the small-diameter groove is not the one I am using to tension it. 

Next on the wheel (already on the wheel!) is a braid of lilac corriedale yarn from Highland Handmades. I am going to ply two plies of that with a ply of a BFL/silk from Frabjous Fibers and try making socks! so far the corriedale is spinning up super skinny (...26/28 wpi? I used my friend's measuring tool but it's been 2 weeks), so that is good. 

What's on the needles, though? SOCKS. Lots of socks! I am pursuing major sock goals for 2016. Earlier I'd posted that my goal was to start a pair of socks/using a skein of sock yarn every month of the year and at least put 5-10 hours into them. February was a hit-or-miss month--I started the socks on time but only put about 6 hours into them. But January's socks were great, and I'm almost done with the second one (I need maybe 3 or 4 inches of the foot and to kitchener both toes and I'll be done). I spent most of the month knitting on other, non-february socks in fact. I finished one of the pairs I'd had on the needles at the beginning of the year, and I'm churning along nicely on the second of those (5 stripes and a heel left).

It's the 4th, so I shall have to start a new pair of socks soon! the next month's pair are for my twin <3 and I think she will like them. Probably I should do them cuff-down because those seem to fit better. I've picked out a simple stitch pattern too.