Baby Socks and Spinning Woes

If you are like me, and 3 babies made it into the world in one week among your circle of friends, then this is the pattern for you!  I happened to come across it on Ravelry, as I frantically searched last Monday, and except for having to make some heel/gusset instruction modifications so that I could do these 2-at-a-time, the pattern is really great. (What's up with not wanting to know until their born what gender those babies are!?)  My heels look a little more like adult socks than what is pictured; and I think that the next pair will have a rounded, short-row heel.  I can' knit one sock at a time.  I'd go nutz.  But some people like both DPNs and one-at-a-time.  I don' judge. Here are my socks, not quite complete:

Here's the link to Baby Mitten Socks on Ravelry, and to Fuzzy Mitten, which is the blog of the pattern designer where the original pattern posting is located, Barbara Prime.  Fuzzy Mitten is one of the blogs that I am newly following.  You should check out her adorably knit animals!

If you are new to sock knitting, this might even be the practice you've been looking for:  socks on a REALLY small scale!  What's cuter on a baby than its feet?

So why isn't my one pair of baby socks done yet?  "Geez, you've been working on them all week!"  Because of two things:  those darned research paper rough drafts and the worst spinning fiber on the planet!  I spent most of my day off yesterday (we had Veteran's Day off, and I don't think that has ever happened in the history of my school system before) fighting with the worst spinning fiber I think I have ever bought.  It was REALLY gorgeous when I bought it, but it hates me, and I hate it now that I've gotten down to spinning.  And I have a ton of it, wouldn't you know.  The problem is that two of the four components, which are not blended at all but are just kind of next to each other in the bat, are so laden with lanolin that when the yarn wraps around the spool, it sticks together and then breaks under the strain of the spindle, or something like that.  It doesn't break or spin too thinly in my hand. Where it is breaking is right at the spool as it is winding around.  And I know that the lanolin is the problem because when I go to work the yarn off of the spool to re-thread my machine, it's glued to the spool and I can't find the end anywhere!  I wanted to spin two laceweight strands and ply them together to make a pretty fingering weight shawl; but I think I'm just going to have to put what I have aside, spin it thickly, and then ply what I have loosely around the thick strand.  GRRRR. This totally messed up my knitting plans.  And it's so addictively frustrating that I couldn't just walk away.  Type A personality and all that, you know.

Linked up here today, so stop by for a visit if you are out and about the Net.