8-9-10

Today would have been Elizabeth Zimmermann's 100th birthday – in honor of the day, many fellow Zimmermaniacs are flashing their FOs. Alas, as much as I cherish the EZ spirit of un-vention, I got nothing to show. I've gifted all the Zimmermann FOs I've made and have no blog-appropriate pix. I can't explain why ZFOs are, for me, more giftable than keepable. I can aver they've given me many absorbing hours and made many recipients very happy over the years. Happy Birthday, EZ!

I do have a finished pair of plain old socks that are mine all mine, worked in Opal Harry Potter colorway Lupin. (I suppose I can see the name, but I'd never have guessed it.) They have a contrast short row toe with zigzag bind off to emulate HP's lightning scar. I accidentally made the second cuff two rounds longer than the first, noticed only after I was well into the leg, so compensated by making that leg two rounds shorter. The socks seem functional despite the error.



Meanwhile, I finished spinning the Targhee singles in record time and decided to try winding a two-strand Andean plying ball. It's supposed to be wound much tighter than one would wind a ball of finished yarn to keep the singles under tension – I'm afraid I pulled too hard and snapped a ::cough:: badly overspun section. I just continued winding rather than start a second ball, because a smaller diameter ball is much fussier to wind than a larger one.



The two plies were fairly close, but not exactly the same length. I plied the leftover on itself and ended up with a 9-yard sample skein. I'm going to swatch it to see if Plan A, a hybrid pullover of handspun and commercial-spun, is going to work. To be continued....