WIP Wednesday: Week 48

It's been a few weeks since I did a WIP Wednesday post last, so I have a LOT of things to show off this time.

First, two finished objects. I finished a pair of socks while out and about and hadn't brought something else to knit on, so I decided to cast on another Christmas bauble, because why not :-)
Socks: Dalarna by Nancy Bush. Yarn: Opal in the Drollig colourway.
Christmas Bauble by Mona Smidt.



I FINALLY returned to my Skew socks. Haven't touched them in probably 10 months partly because I had a serious case of project reconsideration going on (they're slightly too big, so I thought about ripping them out several times, but at the end of the day I like them too much... even if they are too big), partly because the design is so unique that I couldn't just pick them up at any odd time, but had to have the pattern available before casting on. Bad excuse, I know, and this past week I finally cast on the second sock and am already half-way through the heel :-)

Mostly though, I've been knitting on the cardigan for my brother-in-law. I really wanted to have it to the point where I could separate for the sleeves by last Sunday so I could get him to try it on, and decided to knit the hood as well, in order to have a better feeling for how it would fit. That was a LOT of stockinette in not a lot of time, but I made it with hours to spare! And fortunately it fits well :-) ... or at least it will after blocking makes the stitches relax a bit.
(DH commented that it currently looks more like an executioner's hood than anything else, and once that has been seen it cannot be unseen! I need to get some more length on it!)

WIP Wednesday - Week 46

I decided to knit another Baaa-ble hat :-D I gave the other one away as a gift, and have been wanting one myself ever since. It's been getting cold lately, and I've recently started wearing hats on my way to work again, so I figured it was about time :-) It's such a quick knit - only took me three evenings to finish and ready to block. It was finally dry enough to wear yesterday, and I love it! It's so much warmer than my other hats (since this was both yarn held double and knit at a tighter gauge) and actually covers my ears!
This was my first attempt at making a pompom which turned out to be a lot easier than expected.

Aside from that, I've been working solely on a Christmas present for my brother-in-law. He overheard me asking Morfar if he'd like a knitted sweater for Christmas, and quickly jumped in, "If that's an open offer, I'd like one too!" As he's always impossible to find gifts for, I jumped at the opportunity. He asked for a cardigan hoodie, which was pretty much impossible to find a pattern for on Ravelry :-P In the end, I had to modify a pattern as I could only find suitable ones with female shaping. Oh well, easy enough to remove the waist shaping and add ease... hopefully :-P I have to use the biggest size as it is, and then increase further to add extra ease. We'll see how it goes.
I have gotten quite a bit further since taking this photo, but I was in a middle of a row when I remembered I needed to take a new one, and it basically just looked like a big black blob, so this will have to do for now.

WIP Wednesday - Week 44

Last week, Jordan sent me an email asking me if I could pleeeeeeease knit/crochet a pig for him... apparently in his and his sisters' mind, auntie Ria can crochet anything! What's a doting auntie to do? Fortunately Ravelry had a ton of free pig patterns, so I quickly found one that suited both of us and got working. Two days later I'd finished the pig and was actually really chuffed with how it turned out!
... that same evening Jordan sent me another message, asking me if I had time to finish another one by the time we'd see each other the following day... see above re. auntie can do anything. This time I had to let him down though. Perhaps I could have managed, but it'd be a struggle, so I promised to make him one for his next visit instead.

Thursday I was out with some colleagues for a work event, and as we started the evening off at a cocktail bar, I thought it was the perfect chance to get some work done on my current pair of socks. Alas, I didn't think to count the stitches before starting, and thus didn't realize that I hadn't yet finished all the increases for the foot, but just started knitting straight... it wasn't until I picked it back up again two days later that I realized the sock was looking awfully small, and realized I was missing 4 stitches!

Last night I swatched for a cardigan for Peter, my brother-in-law. He asked for a black hoodie made out of thin yarn. Unfortunately Ravelry was very thin on patterns for cardigans for males that fit those parameters, so I found one for females instead that (otherwise) fit the bill nicely, and will adapt it to be unisex. As far as I can see, I just need to add a bit of extra ease and drop the waste-shaping, and it'll be fine. Peter approved of it, anyway. I'm looking forward to getting started... even if I am fully expecting the miles and miles of stockinette to get boring after awhile. Like I wrote on Instagram - that's how much I love my BIL 😉

Finally, I've been working on my Chromatic pullover. It's a bit slow going, but I love the way it's turning out, so I don't mind too much. Another 15 stripes or so, and the body should be finished... unless I decide to add on a bit more length... I think I'll try it on again in 15 stripes' time and decide then.