WIP Report

Last night, I finished my Limestone One-Skein shawl. I won't be able to block it until tomorrow at the earliest and maybe not until Saturday, but I feel good that it's done. 1 down, 10 to go! Not so bad for not even being halfway through the first month. I'm a finishing fiend! I haven't put my new blocking mats away once since I laid them out to block Evenstar, because I am just finishing projects left and right. It's a good feeling, although I also have a raging case of startitis that is keeping me from fully experiencing the triumph. I just have so many things I want to make, I'm going nuts. I have a three-day weekend coming up and I'm hoping to put the time to good use. I have some housecleaning that I really should do - in fact I'm on Amazon looking at new vacuum cleaners right now. I have been through 3 vacuum cleaners in the last 5 years, plus two handheld dirt devils. Thanks to the ridiculous number of yarn purchases I've made this month, though, I may have to wait until payday. Blech.

Part of the problem may be that it's so cold here, and now that I'm done with the limestone shawl, my two in-progress shawls, Fiori and Sevillano, are both lightweight silk. I feel the need for something more snuggly.

Well. maybe a status report on my WIPs will convince me to behave.

1. Sevilano

I love the pattern, I love the yarn. The finished project is going to be stunning. I'm not sure why I'm not quite feeling it right now. Not many people seem to be knitting it, and it is so much more fun to knit along with others. Maybe when the pattern is released to the public and more people can get their hands on it, it will get the attention it deserves. I have a feeling that it'll be just as engrossing as ever when I pick it up again - it's just a victim of the 'holy crap there are xx days till Christmas' frenzy.

2. Fiori di Sole

So beautiful, so springy. This one may just be suffering from a combination of seasonal issues and over-anticipation. I've wanted to knit Fiori for so long! I'm already impatient to check it off the list and I have barely gotten started!! I need to relax, not worry about getting it done, and just enjoy the process. The more it grows, and the more beautiful it gets, the more I will love it, and the faster it will go. It's going to be stunning, I just know it. It's a beautiful pattern and now that I've got the right yarn, it's going to be a work of art. If only it weren't so darn cold outside!

3. Simone

One day I am going to face the fact that I'm just not a sweater knitter. I see people on other blogs who crank out sweater after sweater in a matter of weeks, and you know what? I bet I could do it too. Compared to a lace shawl, sweaters are fast. But...I'm just not a sweater knitter. Still, this sweater will be lovely, soft, and warm when it's done, so I really should pick it back up again and keep moving.

4. Cotton Towel

Okay, this one is really just embarrassing. A simple little something I started just for fun, as an easy project. This picture is quite old, and the towel is much, much longer than shown. My plan was just to knit until the yarn ran out, and the reason I stopped carrying this around is that I was so close to that point that I thought I had better start the edging, and I needed my stitch dictionary to do that, so this is probably 95% finished. I vow to get it done this weekend. I don't think it'll take very long at all. I just have to, um...figure out where it is.

5. Follow the Leader Faroese

I think this one is destined for the frog pond. I just don't like it. Mostly, I don't like the yarn color. I did have some problems with the project itself, mostly due to inadequate attention. I thought this one would be an easy shawl I could just slog out and then give the resulting garment away, but I'm just not enjoying it, and now it's just sitting there making me feel guilty. I've been arguing with myself over it for ages. My options are to grit my teeth and finish it, or give up and use the yarn for something else. I don't really like either option. Maybe I can give the yarn to someone who will love it more. It's two skeins of Rio de la Plata sock yarn in Paris Rain, an exclusive colorway from Yarn Market. My hangup is, it really is an easy pattern and it would be a great charity peace - if I would just suck it up and finish. Sigh. Maybe I'll take this one with me to game night on Friday and try to get it rolling again. It's just plain garter stitch at this point except for the center panel. I'd love to go to my charity knitting group and actually have something to give them for a chance. Maybe if I really dedicate myself, I can make some progress.

6. Hat, scarf, glove set



This is not actually started yet, except for the hat, which I cast on last night so I would have some mindless knitting. This was a request from the boyfriend, who even bought me the yarn for it. I have made him a hat and scarf set, and a hat and handwarmer set, but he does not actually have a matching set that includes all 3 pieces. It seemed like a perfectly reasonable request to me (okay, let's be real - I get giddy when people ask for knitting, and buying me yarn is the surest way to guarantee I'll actually do it) so I agreed, provided he was willing to wait until after the Christmas knitting was done. Since the Christmas knitting is done, it's time to get busy on this most reasonable of requests. I had intended to start the scarf first but I couldn't find the right needles, so the hat is coming first instead. I'm using the tried and trusted Kim's Hats pattern from Last Minute Knitted Gifts, ribbed brim variation. His first hat was a rolled brim hat that was one of my first projects, knit flat and then seamed. I still consider it a wonder that the seam has not come apart after all this time, but there you go. It was knit out of Lion Brand Wool-Ease and I'm kind of embarrassed when he wears it now, since I am capable of so much better. The scarf that goes with it is a broken garter rib scarf. The reason for this is because I misunderstood the directions for the ribbed scarf I was actually trying to make. The second hat I made him was a 1x1 ribbed hat out of Noro that looks very fetching on him. It doesn't really have a brim, it just goes in 1x1 from top to bottom. It's very stretchy and fits him well, which is something of an accomplishment because his larger than average intelligence apparently requires a larger than average head - his is 26". I usually accommodate this by starting with the number of cast on stitches for the large size, and taking the difference between the medium and large sizes and adding that number of stitches to the large. This time, we're going with a ribbed brim hat that will be knit long enough that he can fold the ribbed part up to have a double layer over his ears.

The scarf will be plain garter stitch, but knit lengthwise - which is why I couldn't start it yesterday. I found my 16" 9's, but not my US9 interchangeable tips. I'm missing a bunch of cables too. I'm not a very organized or disciplined person, so they're probably scattered all over everywhere. I actually think the #9 tips are in my Simone sweater! More motivation.

For the hands, I will probably do another set of Urban Necessity gloves. Why fix it if it's not broken? I rarely knit patterns more than once, but I've made a ton of these gloves over the years. Same with the Kim's Hats, really, it's just my go-to pattern.


7. Socks

I always have a couple of socks on the go. I have two pair in progress right now, one for me and one for my big-footed honey. These don't count. Half the time I don't even put socks on my Ravelry project page. There will always be socks.