WIP Wednesday - One Day Late

Pictures were taken yesterday but ran out of time to write the WIP Wednesday post. And despite having more than enough projects on the needles to keep me busy for weeks, I have 3 new WIP's to share with you today. And don't think I haven't finished anything. I have several finishes to share. Hopefully I'll get that post written and posted tomorrow. Lots of lovely knits to share. Let's get to the new WIP's.

First is a hat for my daughter. It's the Stormy Harbour hat pattern that I test-knit for Sarah of Imagined Landscapes. I made two of these before and mailed them to Jen for her hat-along (found here and here). But I loved the pattern and knew I would knit it again. I hadn't looked at the pattern that Sarah published after test-knitting and it is so good. The test-knit was set up differently and probably confusing to some but now it has a great flow. 

My daughter requested a new hat that didn't have any holes. She meant lace but I understood. Yarn is new to me, Sugar Bush, Bold. It's a Canadian yarn similar to Cascade 220 Superwash with a ton of colours. Works great, too. Love the magic of twisted stitches.

And this little Cyclops tree might look done, but he still needs to be decorated. And arms. I used the Generosi-trees pattern by Anna of Mochimochi Land. Fairly quick knit. Worsted weight yarn and just a couple hours to make. I plan on making several of these to give as gifts this year. This one is for us to keep. I think I'll put a cardboard circle in the bottom of the next one to see if that helps it stand up better. 4 year old loves it.

And a new sweater for me, because why not. Not like I have any gift knitting I should be doing. (Only 2 cardigans, an afghan, socks, a couple cowls and maybe another afghan - that's not much, right? Oh, and two quilts. Yikes!) Yarn is Feisty Fibres (another new to me yarn)and I couldn't resist it when my boss brought it into the store. I'm making a Spotlight sweater using a bright green for the yoke colourwork. And the dyer is coming to the store next weekend to do a trunk show. Should be fun. Slightly challenging myself to get the sweater done by then, but I don't think that will happen. Maybe. We'll see.

What have you been working on?

Friday Finishes!

It's rainy and cold here today, so let's look back at a couple finishes I had this month when it was hot and sunny.

I finished the Owlet for my son. It's chunky/bulky weight yarn, not great for asking a kid to model in the summer. But he loved it and was proud to show it off. He'll be gifted this sweater for Christmas, when it's more weather appropriate.

The back. I originally had yellow buttons set aside but I only had enough for 5 owls (there are 13 on his sweater). I wanted all the owls to have button eyes, so I found some other buttons in my stash and used yellow thread to attach them.

He's getting to be a great model.

Less sun in his face for this one. And you can see that his pants are on backwards. Something I didn't notice until I downloaded the pictures from the camera to the computer. Band-aid is from a fall down the stairs earlier this month.

Close-up of the owls.

And I finished my Hello, Hello shawl almost 2 weeks ago. Took pictures of it this week when the weather was crazy hot. I think my cheeks get redder and redder in these pictures. It was too hot to take pictures with a huge shawl wrapped around my neck. 

I think it's the biggest shawl I've ever knit. 

Wrapped around with the green yarn closest to my face.

And with the variegated. 

Another picture to show how big it is.

And if you made it this far, you get to see my finished Spero hat. 

It was a fun knit that ended up taking me forever due to moving, it really should have only taken me a weekend. And I really like the idea of a basic hat with an accent panel. Makes it special.

Have you had any finishes this month?

WIP Wednesday - Two Sweaters

I made progress on one WIP this week... and started another. Oops. I made no progress on my Hello, Hello shawl or Spero hat. Maybe this week? We're having a Muppet Movie Marathon today, so I hope to get lots of knitting done.

Here is my Branches and Buds sweater Monday morning. Finished the branches and divided the body and sleeves on the weekend.

Stretched out, the branches lay flat.

Here's where I am at today. Started the second skein of the cream colour. Still have several inches to knit so it is a great movie marathon knit.

And I needed something that worked up quick, so I started an Owlet for my youngest on Sunday. Did the first 6 inches in less than 2 hours. I made him an Owlet when he was little and he was sad when I told him it was too small. He picked out the blue yarn for this one. I already have yellow buttons for Owl eyes. He'll receive this sweater for Christmas.

Today I finished the body. Need to make two little sleeves, join them to the body and then I get to knit the owls. He's 4, but I'm making him a size 5/6 hoping it will fit him for a few years.

Figured out I have yarn for at least 5 more sweaters/ cardigans in my stash that I want to knit up this year - two of them are Christmas presents. And I need to buy yarn for at least one more sweater that will be a Christmas present. Guess I should get back to the Muppets and knitting.

What have you been working on this week?

Friday Finish - June Camp Loopy Project

One beautiful finish to share today. I finished my Camp Loopy project for June fairly quickly, and am now trying to finish up some other WIP's so I can focus on July's (I must be crazy to knit an adult cardigan in a month). Anyway, here are some pictures of my finished Bamptom Shawl.

I used all the yarn (535 yards), so I was able to add a couple extra repeats to the shawl. Pattern calls for 6 repeats + 11 rows. I did 8 repeats + 5 rows. Glad I had enough yarn to make it bigger. Yarn used is a gradient set, found here. Ended up super soft after blocking. This is a Christmas gift for someone special.

Drapes nicely around the shoulders. My photographer (daughter) didn't mention it wasn't flat and I couldn't tell until I downloaded the pictures to the computer. Oh well, still looks nice.

Wrapped around. 

Lovely lace.

More lovely lace.

Now to wind my yarn for the Old Growth cardigan so I'm ready for July.

WIP Wednesday

Another week has flown by and I did make a lot of progress on a couple projects, but forgot to take pictures along the way. Now they're at a step that is kind of hard to take pictures of but I still wanted to share.

Bamptom shawl is blocked! Took the blocking wires and pins out about an hour ago. Still need to do it's final, modeled shoot but I had to share how lovely the lace looks after blocking. Totally worth it. 

The knitting project I've been focused on this week has been my Salita shrug. I have three things waiting to be cast on that have to wait until this is finished. Because when you finish one thing, casting on three new ones makes sense. Except two of them require the same size needle. Anyway, back to the Salita shrug - I am 57 rows away from being finished! Not too worried yet that I will run out of yarn, although my daughter thinks I will. We'll see.

Had to add another close-up of the lace. This is going to be amazing after blocking, as well.

And here is a terrible picture of what I have been focusing on most of this week. Monday, I pieced all 70 Scrappy Bento Box blocks into two twin size quilts (they finish at 60 x 84). Did I take a picture of the finished quilt tops? Nope. Tuesday, I ironed and pieced fabric to make the backs and then pieced batting for one of them. I had a big enough piece for the other. Then I basted both quilts (with too much help from my four year old) and rolled them up to await quilting. Which I hope to start tomorrow. Fingers crossed I should have one finished next week to share. I'd like both done by the end of the month so I can give them to my mom when I see her in a couple weeks. She will be donating them to charity.

And my yarn for July's Camp Loopy arrived this week. Plus a little but extra. This isn't all of it. I bought a sweater's quantity in the green AND the black. The green will be my July project and will become an Old Growth cardigan (a birthday present for my best friend). The black will become a Harvest cardigan (a Christmas present). I wasn't sure which one I wanted to tackle for July so I bought yarn for both. The variegated yarn on the right is the special Camp Loopy yarn and I will be knitting it into another Prairie Hills shawl for myself (I test knit this shawl last year and have been waiting for the right yarn to make another).  My kids are looking forward to the winding party for all this yarn. This is their last week of school and winding all 13 hanks should keep us busy for a little bit once they are home all day, every day.

What have you been working on this week?

WIP Wednesday

Compared to last week's WIP Wednesday that was full of many WIP's, I only have one WIP to share this week. 

I started the Bamptom Shawl last Thursday (it is my June Camp Loopy project) and I posted about it last Friday. Above is a picture from my progress this weekend when I finally joined the second colour. I had knit 4 pattern repeats.

Here's where it's at today. Almost done the seventh pattern repeat and have started the fourth colour. Have one left. Think I might get one and a half more repeats done before I run out of yarn. Yarn can be found here.

Closer look at the four colours. 

And even closer look at the pattern. This should look great after blocking.

Hopefully I'll have some different WIP's to share next week.

What happened in April?

The blog was a little quiet last month. I'm kind of sorry, and kind of not. Life wasn't extra crazy and we weren't sick, but I put my focus towards something else for April. My writing. April is one of the Camp NaNoWriMo months. Writers can pick what they want to write and their word goal. You can write scripts, non-fiction, poetry. Or you can do what I did, which was edit. I gave myself the goal of editing and moving 60,000 words from a first draft into a second. I ended up having to rewrite several chapters so I probably ended up writing 30,000 words and editing 30,000. 

Yep, I did it. Finished just before 10 last night. I spent most of the weekend at my computer as I was about 11,000 words shy of my goal on Friday. A lot of new chapters, for the new ending, were written on Saturday and Sunday, and a lot of it wasn't very good. But now that the words are written down, I can edit them and make them better. In February, I started editing the first draft and I'd send a couple chapters a week to my sister-in-law to read. By the end of March I only had 11 of 30+ chapters done. It was taking too long and I'd lose momentum if I didn't edit everyday. So I signed up for Camp NaNoWriMo, hoping I'd finish and I did. And I'm pretty thrilled about finishing. Winning for editing feels a lot better than winning for writing 50,000 words in November. I'll be rereading the whole thing starting Wednesday and then I'll be sending it out to some Beta-readers next week. Kind of scary but necessary. May's focus? Catching up on all the knitting and quilting that was ignored in April and researching agents and publishers to send my manuscript too (that's super scary). First up - this blog post and then mending my husband's shorts that have been sitting beside my sewing machine for two weeks.

I finished crocheting this afghan in April. (Ignore my face, I was probably yelling at the 3 year old who was outside with us and getting into trouble.) I used all 9 skeins of yarn I had and then did 3 rounds in blue for a border. Yarn was some acrylic stuff from Michael's that is perfect for afghans. It should hold up really well. And after washing became surprisingly soft.

Feels great wrapped around shoulders.

Got to love how colorful it is.

Back inside the 3 year old and I made sure it was good for snuggling under. It passed. The afghan will be a Christmas gift this year.

Other things that happened in April? My daughter and I marched for Science.

I crocheted a ton of button flowers. There are 72 in this picture if you're looking for an exact number. Only have 12 left to make!

And I have been slowly knitting my Duvessa cowlette. The KAL for this ends on Thursday so I have some knitting to do.

I'm halfway done chart A. Still need to knit charts B and C. So I will be doing that today and tomorrow.

I have several pictures waiting to get posted that I hope to do this week and next. It would be nice to feel caught up (does that ever really happen though?).What have you been up to?