road trips, sock yarn, and possibly spinning?

sorry i have been incommunicado for the past weekend, i went on a spontaneous road trip to try to distract me from what time of the year it is. i wanted to come back later, so i wouldn't be in this room on this day of days but some things just can't be helped. it was a good distraction though. but i digress. this is a knitting blog so i shall distract myself with knitting, just like i have for the past year. i picked up my needles for the first time in years the last 1 of july and it seems like i haven't put them down since. i started knitting a pair of charades on five dpns, see the picture?? of course, when i turned the heel and started using only four, i left the fifth in a sushi restaurant. they threw it away. i finished one sock on four, but refused to start the other one without my fifth. i'm knitting the toe-up, and the way i work the toe requires either markers or five needles. and seeing how i only keep one marker in my pocket at all times, i couldn't do either. (yes, i keep a spare marker and a guitar pick in every pair of pants. i am a huge nerd.) so on the way back, we stopped in jerome, az. i went to knit 1 bead 2, which people had just raved about. for good cause, i will say. the whole store is sorted into colors. i love yarn stores like that. i have only been to one other one, ironically in laguna beach right around this time last year. i bought some sock yarn, because i am in dire need of plane knitting. i also started the hemlock hoodie using my malabrigo. i finished the body and started the first sleeve. no pictures yet.

i bought two skeins of koigu premium merino in greys, and local merino in pinks. both colors i haven't used before! i'm not sure what they will be yet. i will leave you with this, my then-in-progress charade sock:

i think i'm going to learn how to spin. my dad is making drop spindles for a local artist, and she agreed to teach me.