WIP Wednesday: Week 47

Despite it only being two weeks since I last posted a WIP Wednesday entry, I have SO many finished objects to show off this time! And I'm really proud of a lot of them too :-D

Finished Objects
First of all, I finished the second Happypotamous!!! So happy with how it turned out! I must admit, I'd forgotten just HOW much of a hassle it is to crochet together though, so I think I'll probably take a bit of a break before making another one. But they turn out so delightful that I'm sure there are more of these in my future.

I managed to stuff this one quite a bit better too, so it's more solid and has a better center of balance. I just HOPE Liz will like it :-D

The very same evening, I also finished the sweater for Anne! This was blocking last time I showed it off, and I just had to seam the pieces together. I'm really not a fan of seaming, but fortunately I could mostly use mattress stitch here, which helped a lot. It's both easier and looks better than most other forms of seaming, I find... at least the way I do them ;-P
I haven't had the chance to give it to her yet, so have no clue how it'll fit. Fingers crossed! Hopefully she'll let me take a modeled shot once she gets it.

This past weekend I finished the 14 Minikins I needed to make for the Christmas Party at work. The party is not till this Friday, so I finished in PLENTY of time, and even have a spare one for Henni! (as I made 14 and only afterwards realized that we'll be 14 people INCLUDING me! I already have one, so Henni can have mine ;-) )

Nina wrote me up weekend before last and asked if I would knit Christian another pair of socks as he wears the old pair pretty much daily so they'd gone VERY threadbare. They are leaving again next Thursday, so I didn't really think I'd have time, but fortunately I had a few days with pretty much no plans, so I got stubborn and ended up finishing them in just a week!!! Granted, I didn't knit much else that week, but now I know that I can finish a large pair of socks in 20 hours if I really, really want to! Hopefully, I don't think there'll be much call for that. I gave Christian the socks Sunday, and he put them on immediately! (in fact, almost the entire family were wearing my knitwear that day! Love it!)

And finally, I knit up a hat for myself in just two evenings. After having finished so many gifts, I felt like casting on something for myself, and when I found a newly released pattern for an owl hat, I knew I had to have it :-D Even better - it used up an old scrap of yarn I didn't know what to use for. Score! Love it when that happens. The owls were supposed to have seed beads for eyes, but I didn't have any in the right size, and was too impatient to wait till I could buy some, so I just ended up using Hama beads. Not nearly as elegant, but it worked nicely. Besides - it's just a hat!

On the Needles
With so many things finished, I actually only have a couple of things currently being worked on. The most important of those is still the Unicorn sweater for Nora. I made a few modifications to the chart, as I was getting SO tired of colourwork, but I really don't think you can tell. And now that I've split for the sleeves, I'm at the main part of the body, so the next MANY rounds will just be knitting round and round and round and round and... Lovely mindless knitting :-D

Other than that I'm pretty much only working on a pair of vanilla socks and my cozy memories blanket - neither of which have seen enough process to show off here. I'll probably cast on something else for me soon... have been doing a LOT of gift-knitting lately, and feel like being a bit selfish with my knitting for awhile ;-)

WIP Wednesday - It's a long one!

Apologies for the length. I have done a LOT of crafting in October! Hadn't realized how much until I sat down to compose this post. Might be time to go back to posting these updates a tad more often again - once a month gets a bit overwhelming if I've been working on a lot of different things. Anyway, I'm sure you all are hugely interested in such musings of mine ;)

Finished Objects
I had hoped to have quite a number of finished objects to show off in this post, but as it turned out I could manage only two pairs of socks. However, I have a lot of things almost finished, so next update should be better :-)

My two finished objects are the second Kinda Magic socks from Wool and the Gang and an ooooold testknit where I finally got the second sock done. I decided to make the two socks fraternal, as I found the original pattern a bit too busy for the yarn (although it was deliberately designed for a very varigated yarn, soo....). The original pattern had every second diamond be purl bumps, but I decided to make a no-purl version for the second sock. Hard to tell the difference, as the yarn pooled vastly differently as well, but it was certainly a lot faster to knit, as I didn't have to consult the pattern as often!



On The Needles
I've been working on a LOT of things this past month. Almost all presents too! Although I have added a few pairs of socks for myself too.

Mostly, I've been working on Anne's sweater. I just cast off the neckline which means the knitting is DONE. It's currently blocking and then I just need to seam and weave in ends! The end is in sight! Anne tried on the body of the sweater last month, and it fit her really well :-) So hopefully it will do so after blocking too!

Next I've been working on the Unicorn Sweater for Nora. She was so excited when she heard I was knitting her a sweater - stood perfectly still while I took her measurements, and kept asking me when it would be done! Such enthusiasm is great motivation for me, so though I should really have been focusing on Anne's sweater, I cast it on last week and am slowly working my way through the colourwork of the yoke. The yarn is a DREAM to work with, so as soon as the colourwork is done, the rest should go WHOOSH! But I'm really not sure I'm ready to embark on an adult-sized sweater with colourwork anytime soon - it's sloooooow! Of course it doesn't help that some rows have FOUR colours at the same time! Three I can handle (2 in left hand, 1 in right), but 4? Gah! It's a hot mess. I just HOPE I'm leaving the floats long enough so it doesn't pucker up too badly. I'd hate to have to rip back...
(Actually - I've just finished 2 rounds with just 3 colours and it is SO much easier that I'm considering just doing the rest with 3 colours, and then going back to add the few stitches of the fourth colour (~12 sts per repeat) with double knitting. Might make the stitches "pop" more than what is intended, but it will also make me not want to rip out my hair constantly... probably worth it).

I also decided it was HIGH time I finished the Steggie cardigan, so have finished the back and the left front and am half-way through the right front. I decided to just do a button band instead of sewing in a zipper - hopefully that will make me actually finish it sometime soon!

The second Happy Hippo is almost done! I've joined all pieces together but the very last one and it's currently blocking, which means that as soon as it's dry I can stuff it and add the last piece! Can't wait to see it all done :-D

We have a Christmas lunch coming up at work. Usually I don't bother attending, but this is a tiny one just for my current project. I really like all my coworkers there, so not only am I attending, I'm knitting a Minikin for everybody on the team :-D We're 14 in total, and I've knit 9 so far. It's not for another 3 weeks, so I should have NO problems finishing!

And finally (I think) I've cast on two new pair of socks. Once is an intricate lace pattern that is slow going, but will look AMAZING when done, and the other is just a plain pair of Vanilla Socks. I needed something to knit at work meetings, and vanilla socks are by far the most unobtrusive. This is the Pairfect yarn by Arne and Carlos from Regia.



Phew!