WIP Wednesday - January edition

First WIP Wednesday post of the year! I'm going to try to do one a month, but we'll see if I manage :-P My crafting goal of 2022 is two-fold: finish some of my long-languishing WIPs and knit from stash! I'm well under way with both already! Off the Needles I did a lot of Christmas crafting in December. Not all of it is worth showing off, but I really love these Christmas baubles I found. Each takes about 3 hours to make and are just adorable! I see a lot more of these coming in my future. I kept two for myself and gave two to colleagues. Another coworker gave birth a few months ago. She's still off on maternity leave, but I finished a second Knut for her, so I can have it ready when she comes by the office to show off her baby :-D It's really cute, but I've made two now, so I think I'm done with this pattern. But we'll see - I've been wrong before. Last summer I bought some really lovely yarn while we were on vacation, and I finally found a good use for it! I knew I wanted to hold it double to really make the most of the marled effect that would give, which meant I didn't have enough to add sleeves, AND I wanted to knit it in the round, so I'd have to do as little yarn management as possible. Elena Nodel and her gorgeous Cosmopolitan tunic to the rescue! (Although I did leave out the turtleneck - I didn't have enough yarn, and liked the roll of the natural cast on). I finished this in just 8 days! SUCH a quick knit! My oldest nephew asked me if I'd knit him a scarf with stripes. "Sure! What kind of stripes? Thick stripes, thin stripes, or fibonacci stripes?" "Oooh! Fibonacci stripes!" My nephew is as much of a geek as I am ;-) We celebrated Christmas Day together, so I made sure to have it ready for him by then. (He's practising his "Blue Steel" look ;-) ) On the Needles Nina asked me to make her "a shawl that is also a sweater", which made perfect sense to me, so I went looking for suitable patterns. We ended up deciding on the Granny Cocoon Shrug, so I'm now crocheting my first garment! At the moment it mostly just looks like a giant granny square, but Liz promises me that it turns into a very comfy cardigan once I add sleeves ;-) Almost done with the square - then I get to add shaping! I'd forgotten how much more yarn crochet uses though!!! To follow up on my own private WIP challenge, I picked up an old sweater that's been languishing for more than two years! I cast this on back in October 2019, but the pattern was SO poorly written that I put it down until I could brave 'translating' it. I finally gave it a go and think I'm managing alright? But it is without a doubt the worst written pattern I've tried yet. I also think there are some significant errors in it, but it's so confusing to read, that I'm actually not entirely sure. I'm glad I have significant knitting experience by now, or I'd be totally lost. As it is, I'm wondering how much I'll have to frog.... :-P I'm almost done with the first sleeve, but a tad worried it'll be too long. Also, it's supposed to be oversized, which the body isn't, but the sleeves ARE, so I'm wondering if it'll look too weird, and I'll have to figure out how to adapt it to make it skinnier, while still keeping the armhole decreases even enough to fit into the decreases made on the body... (cue Maria's head exploding). Ah well, we'll see. Fortunately the yarn is AMAZING to work with! SO soft and light. (I redid the neckline after taking this photo. The shoulder straps were WAY too thin). Aaaaand finally, Liz thoroughly tempted me to cast on a year-long mystery knit-along together with her :-D We did a mystery crochet-along together last year (although that was only 6 months) and both really enjoyed participating together, so when she found a MKAL that was just starting, she suggested that we did it again! At first I said no, as I didn't have enough worsted weight yarn in my stash (see goal of knitting from stash!), but then Liz told me that she was knitting hers out of sock yarn held double, and not only did I have heaps of sock yarn in stash that I wouldn't mind giving up for this, I also had some scraps I could finally make good use of, AND I love the way varigated sock yarn looks when held double!!! So in the end she convinced me! We had a long FaceTime session rummaging through my stash to find the perfect combination of skeins, and I finished clue 1 this past Monday. Now to wait (im-)patiently for clue 2 sometime next month!