Wednesday, February 24, 2016

WIP Wednesday - Professor McGonagall

I do a lot of mindless knitting these days, so I've decided that rather than mentioning everything in these posts, I'll just pick out a few projects I'm excited about.

This week, that is first and formost my Professor McGonagall blanket :) It hasn't seen quite as much progress as I would have liked, as I've been away all weekend, but I've gotten past the first three stars and really love it :)
It's EXTREMELY fiddly, and the stars aren't nearly as nice as I would have liked them to be (I might have been better off using double knitting - at least for the stripes following the right-most star), but I'm hoping it's nothing a good blocking can't fix, and it's keeping me nicely interested, which is a good thing :)

I probably won't get much done on it this coming week (as I REALLY need to finish my February socks!), but I'm hoping to get past all the intarsia before too long, so I can focus on picking up the bazillion stitches for the border and keep it from rolling up so much! ;)

Wednesday, February 17, 2016

WIP Wednesday - Sweater Surgery

I didn't post last week, as it was more same-old-same-old, but today I have some real progress to show you, so woohoo! :)

I finally finished the leg warmers for my colleague! They weren't boring as such (the pattern was actually really fun to knit), but because it was commissioned (and by a coworker, no less) I felt like I had to get a move on and get them finished ASAP, so knit on them more monogamously than I probably would have otherwise.

Ah well, they're done now. I'm slightly worried if the cast-off ended up being too tight (despite using JSSBO), but I didn't want them to end up being too loose and falling off either! I told her to let me know and that I'd be happy to re-do them, so we'll see.


I've finished my first February sock and cast on for the second. Still in love with the way these three yarns play together :) I tried a garter stitch short row heel for the first time, so it'll be interesting to see how I like that compared to a regular short row heel.


In the futile hope of actually getting something substantial finished for the Clean Slate Challenge (not looking likely at this point in time - too much of what I've been knitting lately has been with new yarn!) I picked "Professor McGonagall" back up and managed to make quite significant progress on that. Another 7 rows, and I'm ready to start the stars!
The body is knit in plain stockinette, which means it's rolling like nobody's business. Afterwards, stitches are picked up all along the edges to knit a border, which will hopefully straighten it out somewhat. It's my first real attempt at intarsia, and while there's a definite 'edging' around the cat, I think I managed quite nicely :)


Finally, I finally (no pun intended) got around to do sweater surgery on my Spring Showers cardigan. I finished it last autumn, but ran out of yarn so the sleeves weren't quite as long as I'd like. I thought I could live with it, but the constant pulling down of sleeves was driving me crazy, so I bit the bullet and bought some more yarn, hoping that the differences in dyelots wouldn't be too noticeable in twisted rib.

And it wasn't - another 20 rounds added and even I would be hard pressed to tell you where I switched yarns. I forgot to take proper before or after photos, but I did get one half-way through for comparison.
The finished sleeve - preblocking.
I could actually probably have added even more length to it, but I'm happy with it as it is - and it fits a LOT better now :)

Wednesday, February 3, 2016

WIP Wednesday

I've been feeling under the weather this past week, so haven't been knitting as much as I'd thought I would.

I finished the first legwarmer, but it took me several days to cast on the second one. I've done so now though, and am past the ribbing, so the next part should go fast.

Last night I cast on my February socks for the "Just One More Row" KAL. I have several socks on the needles already, but this needs to be a pair started and completed in February in order to be eligible, so I had to start a new pair :)
I'm using three balls of scrap yarn and am REALLY happy with how it's turning out! The colours look awesome together :)

And that's it! I've also added a few squares on my cozy memories blanket, but not enough to warrant a new photo. Hopefully I'll finish the legwarmers soon, so I can get back to all the things I cast on right before Christmas :)