WIP Wednesday - Socks and Slippers

I've been all about the footwear this past week, with progress on no fewer than 4 pairs of socks or slippers.

I finished the February socks with plenty of time to spare :) I'm still debating whether to call them "Green Skies" or "Purple Rainbow" - either way, I love them :)
It's my first attempt at a garter stitch short row heel, and I miscalculated slightly, so the foot is a tad too big. Not enough to matter fortunately, so if only I'd remembered to write down what I did, I might have been able to learn from my mistakes ;)

From too big to too small... I finished the simple garter stitch slippers over the weekend, and discovered that once again my abnormally large big toe foiled my plans! The pattern says to "knit until you reach the little toe and then start toe decreases". Ch!
Ah well. They were quick knits and I actually quite like them despite being too small. I may be able to stretch them a bit when blocking - or I'll find somebody with smaller feet to give them to :) They're 100% cotton so will be nice to use even in summer.

Finally, two works in progress. A pair of ankle socks (knit two at a time, as I don't have much yarn, and want to use every last bit) and my March socks. The challenge for this month is a pair of socks that has been knit fewer than 500 times, so I picked the Whirlpool Socks from "Knitting Socks with Handpainted Yarn" (115 projects on Ravelry). They're quite fun - it's the first time I've tried a picot edge which turned out to be rather fiddly, but I like the way it looks, so probably worth it :) The original pattern had beads as well, but I decided to leave them out, as I wasn't sure how comfortable that'd be on socks.

The yarn for the latter was bought in New Zealand. I simply couldn't resist the colours :D They're more subdued IRL though... apparently my camera didn't like them much.

WIP Wednesday - Professor McGonagall

I do a lot of mindless knitting these days, so I've decided that rather than mentioning everything in these posts, I'll just pick out a few projects I'm excited about.

This week, that is first and formost my Professor McGonagall blanket :) It hasn't seen quite as much progress as I would have liked, as I've been away all weekend, but I've gotten past the first three stars and really love it :)
It's EXTREMELY fiddly, and the stars aren't nearly as nice as I would have liked them to be (I might have been better off using double knitting - at least for the stripes following the right-most star), but I'm hoping it's nothing a good blocking can't fix, and it's keeping me nicely interested, which is a good thing :)

I probably won't get much done on it this coming week (as I REALLY need to finish my February socks!), but I'm hoping to get past all the intarsia before too long, so I can focus on picking up the bazillion stitches for the border and keep it from rolling up so much! ;)

WIP Wednesday - Sweater Surgery

I didn't post last week, as it was more same-old-same-old, but today I have some real progress to show you, so woohoo! :)

I finally finished the leg warmers for my colleague! They weren't boring as such (the pattern was actually really fun to knit), but because it was commissioned (and by a coworker, no less) I felt like I had to get a move on and get them finished ASAP, so knit on them more monogamously than I probably would have otherwise.

Ah well, they're done now. I'm slightly worried if the cast-off ended up being too tight (despite using JSSBO), but I didn't want them to end up being too loose and falling off either! I told her to let me know and that I'd be happy to re-do them, so we'll see.


I've finished my first February sock and cast on for the second. Still in love with the way these three yarns play together :) I tried a garter stitch short row heel for the first time, so it'll be interesting to see how I like that compared to a regular short row heel.


In the futile hope of actually getting something substantial finished for the Clean Slate Challenge (not looking likely at this point in time - too much of what I've been knitting lately has been with new yarn!) I picked "Professor McGonagall" back up and managed to make quite significant progress on that. Another 7 rows, and I'm ready to start the stars!
The body is knit in plain stockinette, which means it's rolling like nobody's business. Afterwards, stitches are picked up all along the edges to knit a border, which will hopefully straighten it out somewhat. It's my first real attempt at intarsia, and while there's a definite 'edging' around the cat, I think I managed quite nicely :)


Finally, I finally (no pun intended) got around to do sweater surgery on my Spring Showers cardigan. I finished it last autumn, but ran out of yarn so the sleeves weren't quite as long as I'd like. I thought I could live with it, but the constant pulling down of sleeves was driving me crazy, so I bit the bullet and bought some more yarn, hoping that the differences in dyelots wouldn't be too noticeable in twisted rib.

And it wasn't - another 20 rounds added and even I would be hard pressed to tell you where I switched yarns. I forgot to take proper before or after photos, but I did get one half-way through for comparison.
The finished sleeve - preblocking.
I could actually probably have added even more length to it, but I'm happy with it as it is - and it fits a LOT better now :)

WIP Wednesday

I've been feeling under the weather this past week, so haven't been knitting as much as I'd thought I would.

I finished the first legwarmer, but it took me several days to cast on the second one. I've done so now though, and am past the ribbing, so the next part should go fast.

Last night I cast on my February socks for the "Just One More Row" KAL. I have several socks on the needles already, but this needs to be a pair started and completed in February in order to be eligible, so I had to start a new pair :)
I'm using three balls of scrap yarn and am REALLY happy with how it's turning out! The colours look awesome together :)

And that's it! I've also added a few squares on my cozy memories blanket, but not enough to warrant a new photo. Hopefully I'll finish the legwarmers soon, so I can get back to all the things I cast on right before Christmas :)

WIP Wednesday

Just a few projects this week.

I finished the hat for my niece, and decided to add a flower for some extra bling :) It's somewhat big though, so she might not be able to wear it until next year. I'm handing it over to her mother on Sunday, so we'll see.

Last week, one of my colleagues started complaining that she couldn't find any suitable black legwarmers that were as long as she'd like. Jokingly I offered to knit her a pair (totally willing to do so, but not wanting to pressure her), and to my happy surprise she thought that was a great idea! We sat down and agreed on a pattern, so when I got the yarn last Friday I could cast on right away :) The pattern (Rosina's legwarmers) is really easy to learn off by heart, so I'm almost done with the first one - just need to have her try it on to make the final check on length and width.
Though black, the yarn is fine to work with - I have no problems at all reading the knitting.

And as always, I needed a pair of socks on the needles. The pattern is Cookie A's Wanida. I haven't gotten that far yet, but I think it'll work well with the varigated yarn, as neither yarn nor pattern is too busy.

WIP Wednesday - Butterfly Shawl DONE!

I didn't post last week as I didn't have many projects that had seen much progress (plus I forgot to take photos... and really, what's the use of a WIP post without photos?!), which means that this week I have a LOT of progress to show!

I finished two pairs of socks last week! Both my vanilla socks out of sparkly New Years Eve yarn and the test-knit socks are DONE :)

The latter pair were a bit of a hassle to knit, as I discovered shortly into the first one that I'm really not a fan of stranded knitting in socks. I did enjoy seeing the pattern emerge though, and like the finished object, so I think at the end of the day it was worth it, and might make others, but I'm going to be very picky with which ones I choose. I think it was mostly the long floats that messed me up. But now they're done, and fit well, so that's the important thing.

I've also - ta da da DAAAAAA - finished the Butterfly Shawl! This weekend I realized I really only had very little left, so I put on one of my favourite series, and just went nuts... and Monday evening, I finished!!!
The contrast in the gradient yarn isn't as obvious as I'd hoped, so you have to view it in the right light for it to be noticeable, but I still absolutely LOVE it!!! And already have another 3 planned :-P So thank you Mum and Dad for that Christmas present! :-) It's a lot easier than it looks, but the rows got LONG near the end! For the last section, each straight row took 15 minutes to knit!
It's currently blocking, so I decided to take an 'up close and personal' photo to show off the colour changes.

I'm still knitting on the "Change of Heart" cowl. It's coming along nicely, but is unfortunately slightly boring to knit. I'm not entirely sure why, but I think it may be because the lace repeat is too long to learn off by heart, but short enough that each repeat doesn't show any significant progress, so it's neither mindless knitting (like vanilla socks), nor a project where each repeat comes with a sense of accomplishment... if that makes sense? The yarn is delicious though (a merino, alpaca, cashmere blend), so I'll keep on keeping on. Actually, with a bit of effort I might be able to learn the pattern off by heart - it's only a 14-row repeat - so perhaps I should just work on that to make it easier travel knitting.

Finally, my sister asked me to knit a balcava for my youngest niece, so of course I got right on that :) It's a really quick knit - mostly garter - so most of it goes WHOOSH! Should finish this before too long... possibly even today!

WIP Wednesday - Returning to my roots

I've been extraordinarily monogamous in my knitting this past week. The Butterfly Shawl is pretty much all I want to knit, and the further I get into it, the more I start thinking of other colour combinations I want to try! I think my next version will be a multi-coloured version (i.e. where I pick the colours myself, rather than using gradient yarn), but haven't decided yet just how many colours I want to use. But I'm getting ahead of myself - I'd better finish this one first ;) It's the first time I've been THIS eager to try a second (and third... and fourth) version of the same pattern though. And I don't even wear shawls that often!!!
It's getting too large to photograph easily, but I'm really loving it :) It's not mindless knitting, as I have to do a lot of counting, but it's meditative knitting, as it's all just garter, and thus really easy. Perfect TV knitting, as long as I don't have to pay too much attention ;)

It's really not travel knitting though, so of course I also have a pair of vanilla socks on the needles. I'm loving the yarn, and am trying to make these as identical as possible.

And because I really need a new hobby (or rather, an old one back...) I want to get back into doing cross-stitch. It's not quite as satisfying as knitting (or even crocheting), but it serves its own purposes, and I did make some gorgeous projects through the years. When I visited an old friend of mine (who often motivates me to do cross-stitch... this will be the third time she's resurrected my old interest ;) ) she had this awesome embrodiery stand which looked like it made managing larger projects a LOT easier. As I received some money for Christmas, and found it at a reasonable price on Amazon, I decided to go ahead and get one :)
It makes SUCH a difference! 5'ish years ago, when I stopped doing cross-stitch regularly, I'd just started on a table-runner which was pretty much impossible to handle due to the size. I put it on the stand, and voila! Easy-peasy! Of course, my tastes have changed quite a bit in the intervening years, and I no longer care to finish the table-runner, but I do have other things I want to make, so I can always repurpose both thread and linen :)