Spring?

I'd like to be able to report that I attended Purdue's Spring Fest. I'd like to be able to say that I watched the Cockroach Races, petted the Fistulated Cow, and enjoyed the Horticulture students' garden displays.

But today looked like this, so it wasn't a day for springtime activity. That really is snow, in April - the first measurable April snow since 1961, we're told.

So I spent the day processing yesterday's yarn acquisitions. I turned my giant tangled hand-dyed skeins into considerably neater hand-dyed balls, without too many doggie disasters.

I'm not sure I like it as much now that it's in balls. The colors are much lighter than I expected - purple is pink and scarlet is orange. But I didn't come to class with a dyeing agenda, so I'm sure I'll enjoy these yarns, and find a good use for them.

It's actually kind of hard to come up with good patterns for multicolored yarns. Most of the sock patterns I like have vertical designs, which are lost with the horizontal patterning of the yarn. All of the really neat patterns - the ones with lots of increases and decreases to form gentle curved shapes - are broken up by the varigated yarn. So I'm looking for the perfect patterns. I've started my search in Sensational Knitted Socks, but I have a feeling I may own a pattern collection or two before this yarn is socks.

My big accomplishment for the day was finishing the socks for the Sam in Pink sock challenge. Remember, these are the socks that I cast on Wednesday. They're Fluted Banister Socks, but I knitted 40 stitches around instead of 60 to make them kid-sized. I'll be delivering them to River Knits soon!

Now I can finish more of the socks-in-progress, and begin the next challenge - trying to decide what and how much knitting to take to Germany.