WIP Wednesday - week 39

I know I did one of these just last week, but thanks to my weekend away, I have gotten a TON of knitting done since last Wednesday. No finished objects, but three works in progress that have all seen significant progress.

Nina's sweater might not look all that much different from last time, but it now has both a neckband and 3/4 of a sleeve! I could have gotten further last night, but had reached the point where I needed to start the colourwork and was too lazy to get up from the couch and go get the green yarn :-P The colours are a bit washed out here, but it looks really awesome IRL :-D

The sweater was too large to bring away with me though, so I cast on two new things last week :-D First up - the Aranami shawl which I've been eager to cast on for quite awhile. Not that I really need another shawl, but I figured it would work well as travel knitting, and could make for a nice present for someone. It turned out to be the PERFECT travel knitting project, so I knit on it pretty much every time we were back in our room. Super easy to learn the pattern off by heart, and so extremely potato-chippy :) It looks a bit weird at the moment, as I decided to do the entire left side before I started "filling in" the tiers - but I wanted to see how the colours played together and besides... it's my knitting! I can break the rules if I want to ;-)

I also cast on a pair of socks for a colleague of mine. She's moved here from Spain and gets cold in winter, so I offered to knit her something. She immediately jumped at the offer, and asked for some hand knit socks in the brightest, most happiest colour I could find! As luck would have it, I had some almost neon bright colour in my stash, so could cast on right away. I wanted something a bit more intricate than plain vanilla, so found an easily adaptable pattern with some faux cable. They made for perfect car knitting, so I got quite a bit of the leg done there.

WIP Wednesday - Week 38

Been awhile since I did one of these last, so I figured it was about time! Of course I meant to post this yesterday, but life happened :-P

Off the Needles
Three finished projects since my last post... although one was a modification more than a complete new knit. Still counts though!!

First of all, I finished the fingerless gloves for Miriam. As always, knitting fingers is a hassle and a half, but actually went much faster than I had expected. Probably because they didn't have to be full length. I haven't seen her yet since I finished them, but she'll get them next month sometime.

While working on those, I also realized that I really wanted to turn my own fingerless mitts into proper mittens. I NEVER wear fingerless gloves as my fingers actually tend to get cold before the palms of my hands do, so though I absolutely love the look of the musical mitts I knit a few years ago, I never ever wore them... and that was just a shame! Fortunately I had more of the green yarn, so it was the work of a few evenings to get them knit up :) Wasn't quite sure I'd have enough for separate fingers though, so mittens it is. We'll see if I'll get to wear them more this way.

Finally I finished the test knit shawl I'd just started in my last post. It was a fun pattern, and I love that it was knit sideways, so the rows never got too long. It's not yet cold enough to actually wear it, but it won't be long now.


On the Needles
Other than my usual socks I only have one thing that I'm actively knitting on currently - a sweater for Nina. I know, I know - I have a ton of things on the needles already, so it's not like I NEEDED another project, but I had an urge to cast on something new, so it might just as well be another gift for her :-D I'm so used to knitting fingering weight sweaters that I was constantly surprised by how FAST this worsted weight sweater knit up and I finished the body yesterday! Now I just have the neckline and two sleeves to go. Nina wants me to add patterning to the sleeves as well, which should be simple enough, but I'll have to do a bit of maths to see when to start the pattern, in order to have enough of the green. The body used exactly half, but the sleeves do need to be a bit longer.