Wednesday, April 26, 2017

WIP Wednesday: Theoretical Knitting

I can't believe I completely forgot to post that I finished my Musical Fingerless gloves! :-) I am REALLY happy with how they turned out, and am looking forward to gifting them to Liz :-)

While searching for colourwork patterns to practice my fair isle (which is how I found the gloves above). I came across an awesome cowl that seemed waaaaay out of my reach at the time. However, the idea stuck and I finally decided just to go for it.

The idea is to make a "My Favourite Things" cowl - so rather than being an actual pattern, it's more of a "recipe" with ideas of how to combine several different colourwork designs to make an amazingly colourful cowl that's incredibly personal to boot.

I loved it! And have been spending much of the past two weeks looking up (or even designing) patterns I wanted to add. This past weekend I finally decided to start, and though my tension still needs a LOT of work, I'm absolutely loving the way it's turning out :-) Granted, there are places where I wish I'd chosen a different colour-combo (and there are bound to be more as I go along), but I'm trying not to let my inner perfectionist get the better of me and just run with it. Once I start allowing myself to second guess my choices, I'd get choice paralysis and never get anything done!
Patterns so far:
-- Hearts
-- Jumping dogs (although they really didn't end up looking much like dogs! :-P Afterwards I found a much better dog-pattern elsewhere - go figure)
-- A rainbow (wish I'd done something else first - the blue in the rainbow gets mixed up with the blue in the sky below).
-- Keyboard
-- Swirls
-- New York Skyline
-- A train

Wednesday, April 12, 2017

WIP Wednesday: Starfish and Octopus

I've gotten a LOT of crafting done this past week, as Liz and I spent most of our time chatting and knitting during my visit. Love it :)

I managed another 6 starfish for the Polygon Blanket. With the ones Mum has knit, this means I only have another 4 full-sized hexagons to knit!! Weeee!! Suddenly the end is a lot closer in sight than I'd thought. They are getting slightly boring to knit though, so I'll be glad when they're all done. Fortunately I love how the colours look together, so I'm sure the finished project will be awesome.

I also worked fairly concentrated on the Musical gloves, and finished the first one except for the thumb! It's a bit tight to get on but fits well once on. I can't quite decide if they've turned out nice enough that I'd want to gift them to Liz... I'll probably wait and see how they look after they've been blocked. They've been a lot of fun (if time consuming!) to knit though, so I'm definitely up for some more colourwork - although I think I'll move up to a larger circumference for my next project.

Finally Nina wrote me over the weekend to ask if I'd crochet an octopus for some friends of hers. Of course I agreed, and finished him last night!
He's a fairly quick project, but the tentacles are tedious... which is also why this octopus only has 7 arms instead of 8 ;-)

Wednesday, April 5, 2017

WIP Wednesday: Elphaba

Remember last week I mentioned that I'd been doing some swatching? Well, one of the swatches turned out so PERFECTLY that I've pretty much been knitting nothing else ever since. That's right, the Doodler hasn't seen a stitch of progress since last time (of course it doesn't help that next step is to pick up 300+ stitches - something I ALWAYS procrastinate on), instead I've been knitting like a fiend on the Elphaba pullover for myself in some gorgeous brown Rowan Fine Yarn that Inese gave me when we last met.

I'm just finishing up the bust darts and getting ready to do the waist decreases, and am loving both how it looks and how it feels :-) Brown never used to be my colour, but I think this one suits me just fine, so hopefully the sweater will be a success and I get to wear it all the time :)
I wasn't going to alternate skeins, as I rather liked the way the yarn was pooling... until I stopped increasing for the sleeves, and it became too predictable. So now I'm alternating skeins after all - occasionally knitting two rounds in one skein just to mix it up a bit ;)

I found a few mathematical errors in the pattern (if 2" at 7 rounds/" corresponds to 14 rounds, then 4.5" at the same gauge doesn't correspond to 16 rounds!), but otherwise it's nice and clear and easy to follow. So yeah... have basically wanted to knit nothing else.

It's NOT a grab-and-go project however - I need to try it on frequently to see how much more to increase or decrease, and with the two skeins it gets fiddly to have in a bag - so for my purse knitting I've returned to the hexagons for the Polygon blanket by tincanknits.
I need a total of 60 full hexagons (and then an as of yet unknown number of half hexagons to even out the edges) and so far I've knit 30 and Mum (who's kindly offered to knit some of them for me :) ) has knit an additional 6-8 or so - so we're getting there :)

Finally I've been knitting just a bit on my musical fingerless gloves. They're not as fun a knit as I'd hoped (due to the small circumference I think, as I had a much better time of it when I was knitting colourwork hats), but if they're to count for the colourwork KAL I have to finish them by May 1st. Probably won't happen, but I'm gonna give it my best shot.