Finsihing things, starting things and sitting in the park

I finished the Elizabeth Zimmerman February sweater on two needles, out of my hand dyed wool. I think its really cute. The main thing I noticed when knitting this is what a long way I have come in knitting lace this year. I made the grown up version in February and I really struggled with the lace. Even on the sleeves I put markers every two repeats. Now my mind has been trained to remember lace better, and even knit a fair bit of this drunk. Although I had to put it down on Christmas day, because I found myself squinting at it, closing one eye so that there would be only one baby jumper in front of my blurry eyes. In fact the only time this went wrong was at knit night, and I apologise for spending the last half hour I was there muttering under my breath and occasionally raising my head to cry "it's not working. Why? WHY??"
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I also finished the yarn for the Bitteroot shawl. It's from a stunning EGMTKs braid.

Here is is in all its stages:

Although I think the final yarn is prettier than this, photographing yarn is HARD.

As for the starting things, I cast on for Stephanie Purl McPhee's tulip socks. I have been preparing wool from my corriedale fleece to spin and this afternoon I am going to start that. i am very excited because it is beautiful, and Leon is pretty excited about me handspinning a jumper for him. At least I think he is. Or at least he should be.

And today the weather was beautiful and sunny and we went and played frisbee in the park, and then sat under a tree while I worked the intarsia heel of the second sock. if there is one thing I've learnt it's that intarsia should be done with your eyes on the work. Although I did promise my Uncle a Kafe Fassett jumper, and if I do follow through with that I'll have to learn to intarsia under all circumstances.