WIP Wednesday

A quick WIP Wednesday post for a couple WIP's this week. I finished my Duvessa cowlette on Sunday. It is currently blocking on the floor of our bedroom. I started the test knit for Sarah of Imagined Landscapes but she asked that no pictures be shared online yet, so you'll have to trust me on that one. Here's what I've been working on the past few days.

I finally got the Spin Cycle quilt under the needle this morning. I played around with a couple different designs, ripping out lots of stitches when I didn't like it, so I'm not as far as I would like to be. 

Think I have it settled though. I'm doing these lines with loops in the sashing. And I came up with a quilt design for the blocks but haven't taken a picture. Not 100% sold on the idea yet.

And I started a Salita shrug, Sunday night. Shannon extended the deadline for the Tops, Tanks and Tees KAL to the 22nd, so I'm giving this a go. I had started a Seaboard tank but didn't get past the first 6 rows. Love the design, just don't feel like knitting with lace weight yarn right now.

And Camp Loopy for 2017 was announced yesterday. Last night I spent way too much time deciding on a pattern and then yarn. I'll share once the yarn arrives. 

And I wish I had thought of this idea. I might have to try making one soon.

WIP Wednesday - A little bit of everything

I think it's been a few weeks since I've done a WIP Wednesday post. I've been working on a few things but haven't made enough progress on any one project to justify a blog post. This week I started several projects so here we go.

The Duvessa KAL started last Friday. Despite my best intentions I didn't get a chance to cast on until Sunday morning. I try to knit a few rows everyday. Hoping I finish by the time the KAL ends on May 5th.

And Shannon's Tops, Tanks and Tees KAL started on Monday. I decided to cast on a Seaboard tank at  almost midnight Monday. Only have 5 rows done. And it's lace weight yarn. Don't see myself finishing this up either but Shannon's ravelry group is so active it's fun to read along. Even if I rarely comment. This KAL goes until May 8th, but her KAL's often have extensions.

My first Super Stitchers Club kit arrived last week and immediately distracted me from everything else I needed/wanted to do. Megan had been showing sneak peeks of the design and had wrote a tutorial for turning it into 4 coasters on her blog. The white floss was sent along with the kit so it looked like traditional Sashiko, but I wanted something more colorful and picked the floss above from my stash.

I had the yellow and most of the green done the day it arrived. I finished the green and started the pink while watching tv, very late one night. 

Colours aren't as bright as I had hoped. Might take out the yellow for a brighter yellow. We'll see.

Been working on more crocheted button flowers for my mom. She has asked for 42 more of each (grey buttons with yellow flower, yellow buttons with grey flowers). I'm almost out of floss, so I need to go get some more. Had to order grey buttons on etsy as they are surprisingly hard to find. They should arrive next week. I'd like to have this project done by Mother's Day.

And I've made some progress on the BOM that Sarah Fielke is doing this year. All the flowers are now stitched to the background and the second border is sewn on. The green ring is only glued down so I still need to stitch it down and add some leaves this month. And then put the center circle on. I'm not really happy with how my flowers ended up. My pieced circle is bigger than most since I had to add 4 wedges to make it lie flat, which took up precious flower space. Tempted to redo it but think I will wait. Once the other borders are added, I'm sure I'll grow to like it. Or at least I hope so.

What have you been up to?

A Finished Shawl, a Couple WIP's and an Etsy Sale

     Lots to share today. I finished the Lokum shawl on Wednesday, blocked it yesterday and got up early today to take some pictures before my daughter went to school this morning. However, I didn't like any of the pictures she took so I ended up taking my own pictures (over 50 of them) to get some I liked. Of course, I cast on something new as soon as Lokum was done. I'm also making some progress on my Fogliame cardigan and one of my favourite Etsy shops is having a sale this month.  Let's get started.

     First up is the Lokum shawl. Pattern by Jen Lucas. Yarn is Misti Alpaca, hand painted sock yarn in the Treefrog colorway. Love the yarn and the pattern. So soft and full of texture. I didn't block the shawl aggressively width wise as I wanted to keep the texture but I did stretch it out, length wise, and got all the little picots on the edge to stick out. Glad I have blocking wires (thanks mom).

     Shawl blends into the grassy background. Good length. And it doesn't appear that "stripey" in real life. I'm also wearing my Low Tide cardigan.

Trying to get a nice picture outside.

Tried again inside.

     More pictures of the texture since I love it so much. And the lovely little picots too. Jen doesn't call them picots in the pattern but I don't know what else to call them. I was a little short on yarn and wasn't able to do the last 2 pattern repeats but I'm not complaining. My skein was 50 yards less than the recommended yarn so I was happy to get 54 of 56 repeats done.

More texture.

And more with the edge. I obviously can't recommend this pattern enough.

     I cast off Wednesday afternoon and grabbed the next Jen Lucas design in my queue, Any Way you want it.

      This is a bottom up shawl and started with casting on 400+ stitches. I did it on my first try with just a little tail left. That pretty much made my day. I also put stitch markers every 100 stitches to help me keep track.

     And my Fogliame cardigan looks like a weird Yoda. I finished the yoke, separated the sleeves from the body (where the blue yarn is) and picked up A LOT of stitches for the ribbing. Have about an inch of ribbing to do before I move onto the lace at the bottom.

The back.

     And finally, to the Etsy sale. I have loved Robayre for years. I often look at her store and think about what I want to buy. This month she is celebrating her shop's 10th anniversary with a 10% off sale. I finally bought something and loved all the little extras that came with it. I bought the leaf necklace but she included a couple buttons and the grass paper and envelope, too.  Go look at her shop and use the code ROBAYRE10YEARS for 10% off. Some of my favorites are this stationary set, this painting and this necklace.

     I've worn the necklace almost everyday since it arrived two weeks ago. (I'm also wearing my new Ani DiFranco t-shirt in the picture above too.) You can find Robin, of Robayre, at her blog, and on instagram. (Robin didn't ask me to write anything about her shop, or compensate me in any way. I just love her stuff and want to support her).

     And her little buttons have been added to my collection. I think I need to find a way to display them. Top buttons are from NaNoWriMo, Fresh Stitches and Mochimochi Land.

Weekend Knitting Progress

     It was a knitty kind of weekend. Last Thursday and Friday were long days helping at the book fair at my older son's school. This week, I have nothing. Other than yoga this evening, I have no other commitments outside the house. It feels nice after a crazy few weeks full of school functions. We've been invited to spend Memorial Day weekend with some friends and I'm still undecided whether we will go or not. It would be nice to sit on the beach and get away for a couple days, but I'm not sure if I'm up to being social for 3 days. We'll see how much I recharge this week. Ah, the life of an introvert.

Anyway, here is the knitting progress I made on the weekend.

     I added another 40 rows to my Lokum shawl. Hope you are able to tell that I've added to it since last week. I probably won't post another photo until it's done. I'm suppose to knit 10 more pattern repeats but I don't think I have enough yarn for that. 

     I also started a Fogliame cardigan for myself on Friday. I first cast on Thursday but it was clear it was going to be too big, so I frogged it and ended up going down 2 needle sizes. Still measuring a little big but the yarn seems to shrink a bit after washing. So far I've knit 45 of 75 rows for the yoke.  I'm considering this my Tops, Tanks and Tees KAL, knit. The deadline for the KAL is this Friday but completing your knit isn't necessary. Just sign up and participate. After frogging the shrug for my daughter and deciding against Bonny for the KAL, it's nice to have something on the needles that I love.

What did you work on this weekend?

WIP Wednesday - Just a Little Bit of Knitting

     Missed posting on Monday since I didn't have a very crafty weekend and had nothing to show. Spent several hours in the garden on Sunday, clearing it out and getting it ready for planting. We are going to try pumpkins for the first time in several years. And we had such beautiful weather, we were outside a lot playing with sidewalk chalk, frisbee and bubbles. Monday, I got my crafty self going again and made progress on some knits.

      I finished the cowl/ neck warmer I was test-knitting. It is currently blocking. Hope to have post-blocking pictures on Friday. Then Sarah asked me to test knit a hat, and I said yes, so now I have to knit a cabled hat in a week. It looks like a great pattern so I don't mind. No pictures of it yet though. I just got the pattern this morning and haven't cast on. I think I have enough yarn leftover from the neck warmer for the hat. Then the yarn should be all gone.

Monday afternoon I cast on the second sock.

     And for Shannon's Tops, Tanks and Tees KAL, I cast on a shrug for my daughter's birthday. I am frogging a tank I made for myself. I think I'm going to try and find a summer dress to go along with it and gift both to her.

     And yesterday we found a Robin building a nest on top of our ladder. I'm not sure how restful this will be for the baby birds. A shelf with outside toys is right beside it. Then our garbage and recycle bins. And the sandbox is about 10 feet away. We hope to see some baby Robins later this Spring.

What are you working on this week?

Knitted Works-in-Progress

I've made some progress on my two main knitted works-in-progress. I've been doing lots of quilty stuff this week too, which has cut into my knitting time.

I finally finished the 6 inches of seed stitch at the bottom of my Bamboo Shell and now it's knitting up much quicker. This is my June project for Camp Loopy and I need to finish it by the end of the month. I'm still optimistic that I'll get it done in time. I'm a little unsure about it though and spent some time this weekend trying to find something else to make with this yarn but decided to keep at it. The colour worries me (since I have a toddler who often hugs me with food or dirt on his face). And I'm concerned what will happen to it once I wash it. I'm hoping for the best though.

Yesterday I put all the lace pieces of my Low Tide cardigan together and picked up over 200 stitches to start the body. It's really hard not to just work on this since I think I am going to love it. Even now it's sitting beside me and I just want to pick it up and ignore everything else that needs to get done today. And I finally looked up how to pick up stitches properly (since I had to pick up so many) and these are the best looking stitches I've ever picked up. I really should have done that a few years ago. 

What are you working on this week?

Finished Pair of Socks #7

Finished my first pair of Frankensocks this year. I used yarn leftover from two pair of socks I made a few years ago. Made from the toe-up, I used all the yarn with blue stripes but still have some of the pink striped yarn leftover. Think I'll be making a few more socks like this too use up leftovers.

Finished comfy socks.

I enjoy knitting toe-up socks, except for the cast-off. I've struggled finding a cast-off that was comfortable but think I've finally found one. Knit 2 through the back loop, put the stitch back on the left needle and repeat.

A finished pair always makes me want to cast on another pair but I resisted this weekend. I think I have enough other knits in progress.

I also finished all the lace pieces for my Low Tide cardigan this weekend and blocked them. Now to put it all together and knit the body.

Knitted Works in Progress

I've made a little progress this week. Knitting hasn't been my focus, so I'm not as far on these as I would like.

I spent one day mainly working on my Low Tide cardigan and was able to finish the left front piece and started the back. Hopefully by next Thursday all three pieces will be finished and blocked.

I was able to get 20 more rows of the Earth shawl knit this week. This is what I usually knit in the evenings after Floyd has gone to bed but I've been doing other things instead this week - such as editing - so progress on the shawl has really slowed.

And I started another hat for charity because I needed something I could pick up and knit whenever that didn't require a pattern. This is fingering weight yarn and is taking longer to knit than the other hats that were knit with worsted weight. There are 120 stitches. The other hats I've knit were between 80 and 96 stitches. It takes several rows before I feel like I've done anything on it but I'm almost ready to start decreasing for the top.

What have you worked on this week? I can start my Camp Loopy project on Monday, so there should be a new WIP next week. 

On the Needles - A Few WIP's

  I have a few things on the needles. When I pulled out projects to take pictures for this post I realized that they were all for me. Oops. Once these are done, I'll be starting Christmas sweaters so there will be less selfish knitting.

For Shannon's Tops, Tanks and Tees KAL (#TTTKAL on twitter and instagram if you're on those), I finally cast on Low Tide. I have loved this cardigan since I saw it. But once I actually started it, I began to doubt if I was using the right colour of yarn or if I should be making the pattern at all. All that doubt means I have made very little progress. I finished the right front bodice this morning, just so I had something to show here. The beginning of the pattern is a little finicky. I still need to make the left front bodice, than a piece for the back. Then they all 3 need to be blocked before I join them and knit the rest of the cardigan. I think making all the pieces is kind of slowing me down - kind of like sleeves. I'm hoping with one done I'll be motivated to finish the other two. 

This is the Earth mystery shawl by Erica at Fiddle Knits. The last clue came out a couple weeks ago so I shouldn't be spoiling it for anyone by posting a picture. I love Erica's designs but she does a lot of cables, which is a lot of work, so I waited until all the clues were out and I saw some finished shawls before I cast on. I finished the first clue Monday night and am 30 rows into the second. The third clue is my favourite and is the reason I decided to cast on. 

The shawl is knit sideways with "live" stitches for the border on the needles. I know most knitters know what I'm taking about and I could explain it here for you, mom, but it's similar to this shawl that I did earlier this year. Just know I am only knitting a small amount of those stitches every row.

And I totally forgot that I had started the Sierra scarf until I was looking at my WIP's while organizing. I admit I frogged 3 projects 2 weeks ago and it didn't hurt a bit. This one, I didn't frog. I put it back into rotation though and did 22 rows last night and another 22 rows today. The stripes are okay, right?  They don't look that defined in real life. 

So, what's on your needles? And why are there no socks in this post? I must get some on the needles quick.