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 :)

WIP Wednesday - Blanketpalooza

On the Needles
I decided to dedicate the weekend to my Cozy Memories Blanket and really put a dent into this. The result being that I got an extra 18 squares knit, and it now almost covers the seat of our couch!


I still have a loooooong way to go, so don't expect to finish it neither this year nor the next, but I'm loving the way it's turning out, and it's a nice and relaxing knit, so I don't mind. It'll get done when it gets done - no rush.

I haven't really touched the Stitch Surfer socks at all this past week, but instead decided to work on my "Hundred Mile Woods" socks... with the result that I ended up knitting way past the point where I had to start the heel. *Sigh* I was planning on doing the pattern heel for once, instead of (as usual) substituting the fish-lips-kiss heel. Guess habit took over, and since I absolutely cannot be bothered ripping back, I'll just stick with the FLK-heel once again ;)

Off the Needles
After not having touched it for MONTHS, I finally finished my Nostalgia Shawl! I'm SO pleased with how it turned out. It's huge, and looks totally awesome :)

WIP Wednesday - #jojifallkal2015

Off the Needles!
I had an FO sneak up on me, so I have a total of THREE FOs to show off to you this week!

First I have the Up-and-Out socks as expected. They have shown me quite clearly that the afterthought heel is not my favourite to knit. They fit well enough, but I prefer being able to knit it all in one go, instead of having to go back and pick up the stitches for the heel. Also, I'd gladly having two extra ends to weave in. It definitely has its advantages, and I'll probably still use it in certain situations, but it'll never be my go-to heel, the way the Fish-Lips-Kiss heel is.

But ranting aside, I did end up liking the finished socks :) As usual, the same qualities that makes Lana Grossa Cotton Stretch a not-so-nice yarn to knit with, makes it perfect for durable socks. And I love Laura Linneman's pattern (inspired by "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory").


My second FO finally came off the blocking mats this Monday! Autumn has come with wet weather, so it has taken AGES for this to dry! But now I have finally weaved in the last ends of the Dansez Pullover, and I absolutely LOVE it! It fits much better than I'd feared, and the colour is perfect :) My only issue with it is that it's still too warm for me to wear it! I'm so glad I stepped out in faith and gave Amy Herzog's pattern a try... even if I did have to knit it in pieces rather than the round ;)


But getting this off the blocking mats made room for the "Knit Your Love" scarf by Martina Behm. I thought I had ages to go yet, but figured I'd better weigh the yarn, just to make sense. Turned out I only had enough yarn for 3 more hearts + the bind off! With the end that near in sight, I couldn't put it down :)
I had 14 grams left after binding off, so I could have fit in one last heart, but it felt like too risky a game of yarn chicken at the time, and I didn't feel like having to rip back. No matter - this way I have enough for a square or two on my Cozy Memories blanket instead! :)


On the Needles
Binding off one sock naturally means casting on another :) This caused a slight "When Knitting Attacks" moment though. I'd wanted to knit "Hundred Acre Woods" by Alice Yu, but it turned out that the smallest size didn't have the purl stitches that gave the leaves definition. It's still a nice pattern, but not what I wanted to knit, so after debating with myself for about half the foot, I finally just gave up and frogged it.
I tried a few other things, but nothing that really worked out the way I wanted it to, so in the end I just gave up and cast on for the Surf Stitches socks instead. That pattern is behaving quite nicely, and I think I'll really enjoy the finished project even if it does take me twice as long to knit as socks usually do because of all the purling.


I finally cast on for the Spring Showers Cardigan by Joji Locatelli. I decided to wait so I'd be able to double dip with the 2 Knit Lit Chicks' Sweater KAL :) I knit nothing else all day yesterday and am LOVING it!!! The yarn is amazingly soft, and the colours are just amazing! Definitely not the last time I treat myself to some Malabrigo Arrayo yarn! I'm alternating skeins, but don't think I really needed to - really can't tell the two skeins apart. I'll keep on doing so though, just for my own peace of heart.
I'm looking SO much forward for this to be finished! I can't wait to wear it :) I can't call it my Rhinebeck Sweater (one of these years...) but perhaps my New Zealand sweater? ;)
But amazing how different the colour looks in natural light!

WIP Wednesday - Two almost FOs!

I am SO close to having two finished objects! Next week, hopefully.

I've finished the majority of the knitting on the Dansez Pullover and have just finished seaming it together. All that remains (apart from weaving in a gazilion ends!) is to pick up stitches around the neckline and knit the collar :) I hate picking up stitches, but once that's done, the rest shouldn't take me too long :)
I really need more practise with seaming though! The straight seams went okay, but the sleeves were a hassle and a half! I'm still not completely happy with how they turned out, but have basically acknowledged that this is as good as it's gonna get until I get better at it. If anybody has recommendations of online tutorials for setting in sleeves, I'd be very interested!

Meanwhile I've swatched for the Spring Showers cardigan by Joji Locatelli for the #jojifallkal2015. I'm knitting it out of the Malabrigo Arrayo I bought in Hamburg, and even just after having swatched with it, I am TOTALLY in love with the yarn! This will be a delight to knit, and I can't wait to get started! I want to finish the Dansez Pullover first though, which is why I haven't cast on yet.

The Up and Out socks are almost done too now :) They're my commute knitting, which means they've seen quite a lot of progress since my returning to work. I've almost finished the second cuff, and then just have to do the afterthought heel. Should be done by next WIP post.

And of course I've also been working on Knit Your Love. I have almost memorized the pattern repeat, and just need a few reminders here and there, so it's going much faster now - even despite the longer rows. It's good for conversation knitting as most of it is completely mindless, so I'm up to 13 hearts now. The pattern is for 20 hearts, but as I don't have quite as much yarn as the pattern calls for, I'm just going to knit until I run out of yarn. I am still COMPLETELY in love with the yarn - both feel and colour - and wish I had enough for a full garment.

WIP Wednesday - Catching Up

Woohoo!! Vacation! Which means I've been doing a TON of knitting lately! Espeically as I missed last week's WIP Wednesday.

I've been knitting a tad more on my Nostalgia shawl, and am now well into the third and final lace section. It's odd though - the lace itself is just a plain 4 stitch repeat, so easy enough to learn off by heart, but the border changes for every row (with a 16 row repeat) and I'm completely unable to make any kind of sense of what's happening... which means I have to refer to the pattern for every row, and thus this doesn't see as much progress as I had hoped. I would have liked to have reached the final section by now, but... oh well. I've been enjoying my other knits instead :)

Two of those other knits are brand new cast ons! Stashdash is over, and immediately I cast on All The Things! :) I was sent Martina Behm's pattern "Knit Your Love" as a present Wednesday evening, and of course had to cast it on right away. It's not quite as easy to memorize as Martina Behm's other patterns (has a 14 row repeat), but I love it anyway - especially the colour! I would love a sweater in this yarn!
The hearts aren't too obvious yet, but they should be fine once the scarf is blocked.

I'm knitting a new pullover for myself My last few sweaters have all been kind of big on me, so I decided to step out in faith, and give Amy Herzog's pattern a chance... even if they are knit in pieces instead of in the round! My gauge was way off though, so I ended up having to knit a size 34 instead of a size 40! I think it's right though, and I even blocked the back to double check my math before casting on for the front and sleeves. I finished the front yesterday and seamed the two together this morning. Looks like it may be a bit snug over my belly, but hopefully nothing too bad.

For some weird reason I haven't been doing much sock knitting lately. I think it's the yarn... as much as I love wearing Lana Grossa Cotton Stretch, I'm really not a fan of knitting with it! So with that in mind, I've only just put in the yarn for the afterthought heel on the second sock. Hopefully I'll get it done soon, so I can cast on a new pair!

Finally, I've been knitting almost exclusively on the Cozy Memories Blanket this past week. We were off on a road-trip Mon-Fri (which is why I missed last week's WIP post), and it turned out that even though it's kinda big, it's PERFECT for car knitting! I've gotten 20 squares done in the last week, and am very happy to see such significant progress :)

WIP Wednesday - Swatches aplenty

I have a finished object to show off this week! After procrastinating for a lot longer than I should have, I finally got cracking on the crocheted snail last week, and this weekend I finished it!

It's every bit as cute as the first one I made, and I'm almost said I promised to give it away ;) It's incredibly fiddly to sew together though - especially the shell and bottom foot.

Ah well - worth it :)
Compared to the first one I made, it's quite obvious that I've gotten better ;)

I've also gotten quite a bit more done on the nostalgia shawl. I finished the second lace part and am about half way through the garter section before the next and final lace part. I'm still totally in love with this yarn :)

Finally, I've been doing lots and lots of swatching! My knitting mojo was low over the weekend, and I realized it was because I wanted to knit on something new... so I swatched for a new sweater... and promptly felted the swatch! I was NOT impressed, as the label said it was fine for 30C machine wash!!!
After ranting and raving for a bit, I took another look at the label, and noticed two small dots under the temperature indication... a quick visit to google told me what I'd pretty much already guessed... 30C yes - but on the GENTLE cycle! Gah! Another washed swatch later to prove that it did indeed work that way, and I now have to figure out what to knit instead... Because of course I'd chosen a pattern where my yardage was juuust close enough that I knew I'd probably have to use the swatch... bit difficult now that it's felted! So I needed to do another 2 swatches for another project instead (same yarn - two different colours on two different sized needles).
But once again it goes to show - always treat your swatch the way you would the finished project! Certainly saved me a lot of heartache here!

WIP - My Sock Blanket is getting HUGE

I've been a bit all over the place this past week. Since I finished my StashDash2015 goal I've felt more free to knit a little bit here and a little bit there, rather than aim to finish anything :)

So the very first thing I picked up was my cozy-memories blanket! This baby still has a looooooong way to go, but I've added an extra 7 squares over the past week. It's way too big to bring anywhere, so this is strictly for at-home knitting.
Actually, it's getting insanely big. It's almost 2 meters wide! I obviously didn't think that one through. There's no easy way to rip back though, so I'll just keep at it as is, and count myself lucky that I have no plans of finishing any time soon ;)

I signed up for a quick testknit on Ravelry of a really cute 'lovey'. After finishing it, I realized that youngest niece is probably getting too old for these (or she will be soon), but I figure I'll just keep it around - I'm sure a ready-made shower gift will come in handy.

Other niece's snail has seen a bit of process too, lately :) She wrote to ask how it was going, and I realized I hadn't touched it in weeks! Embarrassing. (Even if she did reply "I didn't mean to stress you!" I know sweetie, I know :) ). I've finished everything but the head/body now, so it's coming along nicely, finally!

Finally, I've returned briefly to my Nostalgia Shawl. I'm in the middle of the second lace part, and apparently I can't count to four and take part in a conversation at the same time! It's still perfect for TV knitting, but I can't actually bring it with me anywhere. Go figure. Ah well, I still love it :)

WIP Wednesday - Wohoo! Done!

I finished Nina's vest!!! Woohoo :) Friday I realized I only had another 20 rows to go, so I decided to just buckle down and finish it :) 1.5 podcasts later, and I was all done! Weaving in the ends turned out to be a challenge though - since the stitches are so open I couldn't find any way to do an invisible weave... even my trusty duplicate stitch BO showed up really blatantly. In the end I just tied the ends together with tight knots and hoped for the best :-P It should be fine, but I should probably warn Nina to use a laundry bag just in case ;)
I see her on Friday, so can hand it over there. Hope she'll like it :-)

But apart from a bit of commute knitting on my socks (too little to show off), I've been pretty much monogamous ever since, which means that the Nostalgia Shawl is coming along very nicely! The yarn (Colour Adventure Dia Light) is SO amazingly soft and squishy that I want to knit nothing else! Still not sure about the colour combination, but it's growing on me, so I think it'll be fine. And the yarn is so yummy that I'll willing to forgive it just about anything ;) Definitely not the last time I've bought yarn from Anadiomena!

WIP Wednesday - To new FOs!

Two new FOs today! :)

One of them you could probably guess. Since my Spot Checked Socks only missed a single toe last week, it would have been weird if I hadn't managed to finish by now :) Blocking helped a lot, and while they're still a bit tight, it's not too bad. And while the toe look weird, it fits nicely when I put it on.

The other FO is my Thirty Valentine's Shawl!!! I got stubborn and pretty much knit on this exclusively all last week! Saturday I finally bound off the last stitch (using a crochet cast off which I haven't tried before, so it took me longer than it would have otherwise), and Sunday I blocked it to within an inch of its life! It never ceases to amaze me what blocking does to lace! It went from this:
to this!
Final measurements are 170cm x 80cm. I ended up with just 10 grams of yarn left over - enough for another ~6 rows, so I'm calling that a succes :) The yarn is still strangely stiff, even after washing (I believe Lars compared it to steel wool!), but since I won't be wearing it next to my skin, I don't mind too much.

With those off the needles, I've managed 3000meters for StashDash! Since my goal is 5K, I should be juuuust fine :D

Since Sunday, I've had time for some other projects, so I've the first Adjoin sock :)
Unfortunately I tried to guess at the placing of the heel, so it's slightly too big. Ah well. C'est la vie.

I've also finally started the Seabrook vest for my sister. It doesn't look like much yet, but since it's knit on size 8mm needles, I'm expecting it to move fast :)

WIP Wednesday - Woohoo! :)

I've been very dilligent this past week and have a lot of progress on a lot of different things! I even have a finished object! But let's start at the beginning, because my very oldest WIP is d-o-n-e DONE!!

I first started the Puzzle Piece Blanket back in August 2012 and quickly realized that this would take forever, so once I started my Cozy Memories blanket, I decided to downgrade the PPB severly, and turn it into a runner instead. I determined how many more pieces I needed to knit, and set myself the goal of finishing in 2015. Stashdash seemed as good a time as any for it, and this weekend I sewed the last seam, weaved in the last end, and yesterday I could finally take it off the blocking mats!
I. LOVE. It!!! It looks SO awesome :D Mind you, I've also discovered all the things I should have done differently, but find it highly unlikely that I'll ever care to do this again, so oh well.


I've cast on a new pair of socks! Because obviously I didn't have enough projects on the needles as it were. But I have a good excuse - I need some mindless knitting for next weekend, and my other socks were too close to being done. So what's a girl to do? She casts on a new pair, of course!

And I'm glad I did, because I'm totally in love with both the pattern, the yarn and the needles. I'm knitting the Adjoin Socks by Lara Neel (although I'm totally substituting the fish-lips-kiss heel!) with some Koigu yarn I bought in London. This is my first time knitting with Koigu, but it definitely won't be the last. It's SUCH a treat to knit with :)
In fact, I kinda have to limit myself, so I don't finish these prior to Saturday!


Fortunately that's not too much of a sacrifice, as I have plenty of other projects on the go. I had hoped to have my Spot Check socks finished by today, but forgot to bring my purse along yesterday, so I had no train knitting to and from work. Kicking myself for that, I assure you! I only have one toe left to knit though, so I'll definitely finish today!
I tried a new toe and don't altogether like how it looks. It feels alright on though, so I'm not bothered enough by it that I'm going to rip back and reknit it. It's a bit too tight as feared, but I'm blocking them more rigoursly than I usually do with socks, so I'm hoping that'll get the yarn to relax somewhat. Otherwise I've been told of several people who have small feet ;)


My 30 Valentines shawl is coming along nicely :) I'm at row 124 of the original 140 and have PLENTY of yarn left, so I've been driving myself crazy trying to figure out how many extra rows I can do, how to fit that with the repeats, and how on earth to calculate the rate of increase of yardage used per row, when I'm adding 4 extra stitches each row! No matter what I did, I couldn't seem to make it give me a useful result.

Then today it suddenly struck me - I should try counting stitches instead of trying to measure how much yarn I used per row, since that was changing constantly anyway! Excel to the rescue, and I quickly figured out that after 16226 stitches (the first 123 rows) I'd used up half the yarn! Adding the 40 rows of a full repeat would take me an extra 17416 stitches - not counting the bind off. No matter how I twist and turn it, I can't make that math work! So I have to find a way to fudge it and only add a half repeat. I don't have a lot of experience tweaking lace patterns, so that'll be fun :-P And it does make me kinda depressed to know I'm only 51% of the way through instead of almost done! But I tell myself that it'll be worth it in the end, having the much larger shawl and a lot more yardage for stashdash! ;)
Besides, as much hassle as it is for me to knit - I do think it's looking pretty awesome :) (IRL - doesn't really show up that well on the photo. Lace is impossible to show off until after it's been blocked!)