Yesterday I tackled one of the biggest challenges I faced since returning home: getting all that new yarn to fit in my stash boxes. It took a bit of shuffling and, I confess, a bit of cheating. I had been storing spinning tools and fibre in two of the boxes. Once I found a new home for it, adding the new yarn was easy.

Must do something with the fibre. I’m thinking of selling, gifting, felting and weaving it. But not now, because on top of my wips I have a bag to design and make. I signed up for the Australian Bag Lady Swap on Ravelry’s Aussie Knitters group, you see. (Waves to giftee.)

As for wips, they’re all Sockless Summer projects:

I knit the hand of the second cashmere glove in the car on the way home from the retreat. All that cabling and simultaneous thumb gusset increasing. I thought it too hard when I first arrived at the retreat, but two weeks later I was knitting it with half my attention on the scenery going past.

Last night I sat down and decided to finish them. Surely ten little fingers could be knit in a night. Four and a half hours later I finally finished the first glove. Who’d have thought those little suckers were so time consuming? It didn’t help that I had to adjust to fit along the way, and frogged an entire finger after I realised there weren’t enough stitches left to make anything but straws for my middle and index finger. All I can say is, I have wierd hands. They’re more like table-tennis rackets – skinny at the wrist and wide at the palm. This led to me doing some wierd shaping for the thumb, too.

Thank goodness I took notes for the second glove. There’s no way I’d remember everything I did.

The Sock Yarn Sunhat. I threw this ball of Regia Surf cotton/merino blend sock yarn into my bag because I’d had the idea of crocheting a sunhat from it for a while and it seemed a good travel project. The pattern, “The have-it-your-way crochet hat plan” from Yarn magazine, is a good ‘un. I’ve made it three times now, in 8 and 5ply. 4ply is slow going, but it’ll make the hat light and cool to counter the wool content.

The Mitre Vest. This is as far as I got before leaving for the retreat. I was quite addicted to knitting those little squares before I left and wished I’d brought it with me. I’m itching to resume, but want to finish the gloves before I do. Since I now have plenty of the burgundy Patonyle to knit edgings with, I’m thinking of adding a diamond mitre motif to the back of the vest as well.

But not on the fronts. Positioning is everything, and I don’t wan’t to look like I have diamond shaped front bits, if you know what I mean.