A Long Line of WIPs: Part Two

This post should actually be called "An Even Longer Line of FOs", but I can't have a Part One without a Part Two, so there you go. I'm planning to give you a bit of an update on some of those WIPs in this post, and then I'll share some finishes, too. All links are to my Ravelry project pages.

I have two long-term WIPs. One of them, which I cast on almost two years ago, has been hibernating for a while, and will be taken out of hibernation and, I hope, finished, sometime before the end of this year. The other one, Shades of Blue and Pink, was cast on almost exactly a year ago. It was supposed to be travel knitting on our New England trip last July, and I did work on it then, but then I didn't work on it for a long time. I have picked it up again, and I'm actually making good progress. In the photo below, you can see the tiny bit left from the second ball of yarn. I am not planning to knit the whole third ball, so I may have a finished scarf shortly.

I cast on my Summer Socks because I wanted socks with some cotton content for the cooler summer days we usually get here in the Northwest, days when it is too warm for wool socks, but lighter weight socks are still an option. The problem is that we haven't had any cooler summer days. It has been hot, sunny and very, very dry, and as a result, I haven't been much in the mood for finishing these socks.

Newer projects include My Own Hand-Dyed Shawl, which is a free pattern, Nurmilintu. The yarn is YOTH Yarns Little Brother, and as my project name implies, I dyed the yarn myself in a class I took last summer.

Another new project is my Summer Market Socks, Bonnie Sennott's latest pattern, Hulst. I am really enjoying this pretty textured sock, which has different, but related patterns on the front and back of the leg.

Finally, my Deepest Pink Cardi, which I shared with you last month, is still in the mix, but I have not yet progressed beyond chart A. That may happen very soon, however, because I just started the last repeat of that chart. The photo below was taken just an hour ago, so this is exactly what it looks like now.

As far as finished objects go, I have been surprisingly productive lately, and you can expect one more very special FO in a post all its own a little later this month. Here are the items that have recently come off the needles:

My Happy Handspan Cowl, knit from yarn spun for me by a dear friend.

An Easy Happy Birthday, Martina Behm's Easy pattern. I love how the Zauberball yarn striped!

That Red Robin is a Bit of a Tart: Helen Stewart's Red Robin shawl, which has been in my queue since it was published in 2013. The name of the project is a play on the yarn, Madelinetosh tosh merino light in the Tart colorway.

And finally, Simply Pink, the Simple Skyp sock pattern. They were simple, but maybe a bit too simple (or perhaps a bit boring). Bonnie Sennott's Hulst pattern was a nice change of pace for my brain after finishing these socks.

Well, that is the rundown of current and recently finished projects. There will be some hiking coming up soon, and as always, more knitting.

What's In the Stash and Off the Needles

Wow, we are already way past the the end of the first quarter of the year! I had been planning to post updates about the progress of my stash busting goals on a quarterly basis, and here I am, already three weeks late. Even though I'm late, the news is good: I was extremely moderate in my yarn purchases. I told you about my stash additions at Stitches West and Madrona in this post, and I kept within my budget at both. So, other than those two events, how much yarn did I buy in the first quarter of 2015? Take a look below and see:

The first yarn will be used for Click for Babies hats. I hope to knit at least nine by September 1, so I expect to use up most of the Baby Ull in those hats. And the Opal Hundertwasser? Well, you may know that I have a deep fondness for that yarn, and it was souvenir yarn from the Knitajourney Midwinter Retreat, so it doesn't count…at least that is what I'm telling myself. Actually, I am very proud that I did so well in Quarter 1. My plan is to continue making thoughtful purchases in the April through June quarter, too.

I haven't just been making moderate additions to my stash, I've also been getting yarn out of my stash by knitting it up. You have seen some of my finished projects in an earlier post, and I have finished several more projects since then. I hinted then that there was one that was almost finished, and now it is. Here's my Autumn Light and Shadows (all links are to my Ravelry project pages).

I am absolutely in love with this shawl! The pattern, Milja Uimonen's Light in Shadows, was clearly written and fun to knit. The yarn, my favorite Hazel Knits Entice MCN, was so soft and squishy. And the colors—Spooky Hue and Seattle KAL—were a perfect combination. This is a pattern that I know I will knit again in the future.

While we are on the subject of shawls (although this one could just as easily be called a scarf), here is my Hitchhiking on Public Transport. It's the third time I've knit a Hitchhiker, this time out of one of my favorite Opal Hundertwasser colorways, Use Public Transport–Save the City.

Of course, there was also sock knitting happening at my house, and I finished two pairs in Quarter 1.  Here they are:

Winter Wave socks

Socks on a (Mostly) Blue Planet

This isn't all I finished, but it is probably enough for one blog post, so I'll save the rest for another time. But, as you can see, there was some yardage used up in these projects: 1,500 yards, to be exact. Not bad, for just one month's worth of finishing. And there will be more to come, I promise.

Old Year, New Year

Happy New Year! This is usually the post where I talk about my goals for the year, but with a couple exceptions, I don't plan to do that this year. What I want to do instead is give you an update on the projects that I finished in the MySister's Knitter finishing WIPs KAL that I wrote about back in October. I had intended to post an update in November, but blog posts have been few and far between lately, so that update never happened.

When I first posted about the KAL, I had finished three of nine WIPs, and shared in-progress photos of two others. My final tally at the end of the KAL: seven of those nine projects are complete, and both of the unfinished projects are actively being worked on, so I expect to have two more FOs in the not too distant future.

Started on August 31, I finished Little Pumpkins for My Feet on October 20, in plenty of time for Halloween. I wore them to a pumpkin carving party, as well as on Halloween.

 

Next up in the finishing category was a rather embarrassing project that had been on the needles since November 21, 2013, and which I finished two days short of a year later. I had originally intended it to be a birthday gift in March for my friend Elizabeth, instead, it was her Christmas gift. Here is my Better Late Than Never Shawl, modeled by yours truly.

I cast on my Time to Experiment Socks way back on May 15. I wanted to experiment with a different heel that would work well with self-striping yarn, so I pulled out some sale yarn from WEBS to use for my experiment. Initially, I thought I would try an afterthought heel, but then I started hearing about the OMG Heel, and decided to knit that one instead. The heel was quite easy to knit, with very clear instructions, but when I tried on the in-progress sock, it didn't fit my narrow foot very well. At first I thought I would just finish the sock and try another heel on the second sock, but I ultimately opted to rip back and try the Fish Lips Kiss Heel instead. I got Mr. D to trace my foot and then did all the measurements that the pattern requires, and Eureka—an amazing, great-fitting heel!  Here are those socks, finished on Christmas Day:

Finally, I completed what was probably the biggest slog of all of these projects, my Crescent Candelia, which I cast on back on May 2, and finished, just under the wire for the KAL, on New Year's Eve. I have to admit that the long wait for the FO was worth it—I love this cardigan, especially the gorgeous Hazel Knits Artisan Sock Crescent colorway, which was named for Lake Crescent in Olympic National Park. The lake is this exact shade of deep blue-green.

Okay, that's the latest on the WIP-knitting front, but what about goals for 2015? I just went back and read last year's goals and they were pretty much a repeat of the goals from the year before. I noted that I gave myself a pass on photography, hiking and reading goals, and all of those things were a part of my year, although there was not nearly as much photography happening as in 2013. Because I did manage to take photographs, hike and read without specific goals, I thought I might try a more relaxed approach with knitting goals this year. I do have two goals—one for knitting and one for photography—I want to tell you about, however:

1. I want to significantly reduce my stash in 2015. I know, I know, I say this every year, don't I? In 2014, I spent less money on yarn than I did the year before, but the size of my stash still grew. (I'm not sure how that happened!) I'm starting the year by participating in three knitalongs devoted to knitting from stash, so that should help use some yarn up. I am also attempting to limit my purchases to yarn for charity projects (Click for Babies hats) and one souvenir yarn (at the knitting retreat I'm going to next week) until I attend Stitches West in February. I don't expect to not buy yarn at Stitches, but I do want to go into the market with a detailed list of projects I want yarn for (the successful strategy I  followed at Stitches in 2013), rather than just drifting from vendor to vendor with no plan (the disastrous strategy that I followed last year).  Anyway, this is the initial plan. I expect it will be updated as the year progresses. I'll try to post about how I actually get along, both my successes and failures, throughout the year.

2. I want to make a concerted effort to take photographs and post them on the blog. Back in 2013, when I was doing a Project 365, I was regularly posting my photographs to the blog. For a while, I was even posting a photo a week. That type of frequency is very easy to burn out on—ask me how I know this—but I do want to share some of the fun and interesting pictures that I find and capture in my everyday life, and you can expect to see them posted here from time to time.

So that's it for now. I'm looking forward to sharing the events of my year with you in the weeks and months to come.

A Fortnight of Finishing

Do you know the word "fortnight"? The dictionary defines it "a period of two weeks." It may be due my fondness for English novels, where this word is often seen, but I am always looking for a good excuse to use it.

Happily for me, the last fortnight has been full of finished objects: a total of 5 major projects and one minor project have made the last two weeks of my knitting very satisfying. Are you ready for the reveal? Here we go!

On April 20, after months and months, I finally finished my I'm in Focus, Veera Välimäki's design, Shift of Focus. I cast it on last September, so it took over 7 months to complete. It was A LOT of garter stitch! That being said, I really like the finished cardigan, and I love, love, love the yarn, Hazel Knits DK Lively in the Queen of the Night colorway. This was the project that got a bit of a sneak peek in the last post, and here is the finished photo:

On April 22, I finished a project that had been on the needles since early February, a sock project that I called That Crafty Honey Badger! The pattern is Honey Badger by Irishgirlieknits, and the yarn is Socks That Rock Lightweight in the Paula Mae—A Night at the Show colorway.  I won the yarn in 2012 in a KAL drawing in the Irishgirlieknits Ravelry group, so I knew I had to knit one of her patterns with the yarn. The pattern was easy but interesting, and I love how the socks turned out. I will definitely knit these socks again.

Next up was my Shades of Purple Beret, finished on April 23. I purchased the yarn, The Fibre Company Canopy Fingering, at WEBS on my annual November visit. I purchased it with the pattern, Kate Gagnon Osborn's En Blekksprut Beret, in mind. I'm really proud of myself for not waiting a year or two to knit it! I'm also finding that I am really getting to like stranded knitting. I may even embark on another two color project later this year, so stay tuned. Here is the finished beret:

The following day, April 24, I finished Sending a Little Love With Castanets, Melissa J. Goodale's shawl pattern, Castanets. I knit this for the March-April Hazel Knits knit along. The idea behind the KAL was to find a pattern that was at least six months old and that had less than 25 projects. Extra points were assigned for stash yarn more than a year old (definitely!) and a colorway (Sapphire) not part of the Hazel Knits lineup. My project was number 17 for the pattern, but I notice that there are now 27, so maybe it is getting some more love. It certainly should, because it is an interesting pattern and such a pretty shawl! Mel has some variations to the pattern (garter stitch instead of stockinette, a larger size and a two-color version) that I may try in the future. I will definitely knit this pattern again sometime!

On May 1, I finished my car project, which I called The Most Boring Car Project Ever. No, it wasn't the pattern, Ann Budd's 8 Stitches Per Inch Socks (my go-to plain vanilla pattern), that was boring; it was the yarn. For the past several months, I have been knitting my car project socks in self-striping and self-patterning yarn (see my knitting goals for 2014 for more on this), and I had thrown this yarn into the hopper for that effort. Mistake! The yarn was definitely not self-patterning and so boring, although the finished socks look nice. Here they are:

On May 2, I finished the last of the fortnight's projects, Dishcloth Thank You Gift, two cotton dishcloths for my friends, Jill and Dick. We had dinner with them a couple weeks ago, and Jill gave me four big balls of Lion Brand Cotton dishcloth yarn that a friend who had stayed with them for a few months left behind when she moved out. Dick mentioned that they hadn't had any hand knit dishcloths since Jill's aunt died a few years ago, and I thought what better thing to send along with a thank you note than two dishcloths! I knit one using the Grandmother's Favorite pattern, and the other using Variation on a Theme, which is a pattern based on Grandmother's Favorite. I'm not a grandmother, but these two patterns are definitely my dishcloth favorites! Here they are, Grandmother's Favorite on the left and Variation on a Theme on the right.

The fortnight is now over, and I don't expect that there will be any finished objects for a while, but keep an eye on the blog for some in-progress knitting coming up soon.

In the meantime, happy knitting!

Photo of the Week: Hanging' Out

223/365: Hanging' Out, a photo by jchants on Flickr.

My recently-completed Mother Bear, chilling with her friends.

Do you know about the Mother Bear Project? The Mother Bear Project is "a non-profit organization dedicated to providing comfort and hope to children affected by HIV/AIDS in emerging nations by giving the gift of a hand-knit or crocheted bear." For more information, visit their website.

Knitting in the Garden

This is a glimpse of my most recent finished object, A Piper in the Garden, the Piper's Journey shawl, designed by Paula Emons-Fuessle. Doesn't it look beautiful next to the green leaves and pink blossoms of the hydrangea in my garden?

This particular project really seemed to have many garden-ish overtones. The yarn is madelinetosh Tosh Sport, in the colorway Heuchera. It just so happens that I love heucheras, and I have several in my garden. They are a wonderful foliage plant, and come in a range of colors, everything from green to black, with reds, oranges, browns, purples and many other colors in between. It just so happens that I have a purple heuchera in my garden, so not long after I cast on, I photographed the shawl next to/on top of that heuchera.

A pretty close match, don't you think? The color genius behind madelinetosh yarns must have had this Heuchera 'Spellbound' in mind when she created this colorway.

Once the shawl was finished, it was too big to be photographed next to the heuchera, so I moved down the walk to the garden gate and photographed it there. You can see my hanging fuchsia baskets above it, and a bit of two hardy fuchsias in the garden behind the gate.

I photographed the shawl next to the hydrangea, as you have seen above, and also here:

Finally, I draped it over the cotoneaster that grows alongside the patio. You can see the other side of the gate in the background. I think my garden and this shawl are a match made in heaven, don't you?

Fiber Festival Stash Knitdown Update

Remember this?

It's finally become this:

Here are the details for my Zig-Zagging Around the World.

Cast on: August 21, 2012
Blocked and photographed: May 28, 2013
Pattern/Designer: Zigzag Wanderer by Kimley Maretzo
Yarn: Hazel Knits Artisan Sock in the Seattle KAL colorway
The yarn was purchased at Sock Summit 2011. Only 8 yards remained after bind-off.

Project Notes: I love how this turned out, but if you decide to knit this pattern, beware! The pattern lists the yardage amount as 400 yards of fingering weight yarn (but the scarf shown in the pattern used Malabrigo sock, which is 440 yards). I ran out of yarn about halfway through the final pattern repeat, and I wasn't the only one; there are numerous projects on Ravelry that had the same fate. That being said, it didn't really matter. The scarf blocked out beautifully, and I'm looking forward to wearing it when the weather gets cooler.

I've written before about my idea to knit down my fiber festival stash by Sock Summit 2014. There is a slight problem with this: sadly, there isn't going to be another Sock Summit. I haven't exactly been speed knitting my fiber festival stash, so I'm giving myself a few extra months, until December 31, 2014 to try to get the task done.  I'll be casting on my next project shortly, so watch for an update post soon.

Two Down, Twenty to Go

Happy New Year! There will be the annual "goals, not resolutions" post coming up soon, but today I want to share the good news that I have completed two (!!) projects in the Fiber Festival Stash Knitdown.

First up is Bluer Than Blue, Linda Welch's great pattern, Crow's Feet, that I have knitted three times in the last two years. Can you tell I love this pattern?

Second is the finally, FINALLY finished Doesn't Look Much Like Seaweed Scarf. I cast this on in July 2011, and it went into hibernation with only 8 rows left over a year ago. It only took a couple hours to finish the knitting—how embarrassing! I like Grace Akrem's Seaweed Scarf pattern very much, but I wasn't wild about my yarn choice, although I think it looks great now that it is finished and blocked. What do you think?

You are probably wondering whether there are any other Fiber Festival Stash Knitdown projects happening. Unfortunately, the only other one has been in time-out for almost two months. This is what it looked like when I put it down:

 

You will find out more about this project when it is reactivated. (And no, I won't let it sit for a year this time!)

Despite Rumors to the Contrary, I've Been Knitting

Those of you who read my blog for knitting content have seen very little of it over the past three months, so I thought I would give you a treat and show you some of the things that I have actually finished lately.

First up, Delightful Delilah (all projects are linked to my notebook on Ravelry).

Delilah is a She-Knits pattern, and is distinguished by the cool fringe, with a bead on the end, that is created by first casting on, and then binding off either 16, 20 or 24 stitches. The bind-off creates the curlicues in the fringe that you can see in the photo. I used madelintosh merino light in the Dahlia colorway—love the yarn, the color and the well-written pattern!

A quick project: Purple Heaven.

That's my sister-in-law, Elizabeth, wearing 198 Yards of Heaven, which I knit for her for a very significant birthday. It took me less than a month to knit this little shawl, which is probably some sort of record for me. The yarn is Cascade 220 in the Italian Plum colorway.

I participated in the Ravelympics—oops—Ravellenics Games this year, and finished two projects. The first is a She-Knits bag, Emma, a long-term UFO that I started over three years ago: Emma is Better (Very) Late than Never. I hadn't touched it in months and months, but when I actually took it out of its hibernation place, it turned out that all I had left to do was knit the straps and felt it. I did that in a few hours over the course of about five days.  Here is the finished bag; I'm so glad to have it done! The yarns are all Universal Yarn's Deluxe Chunky.

My other Ravellenics project was Atmospheric Winds, the Wafting cowl by Melissa Goodale. The yarn is one of my faves, Hazel Knits Artisan Sock in the Atmosphere colorway. The yarn is actually more blue than this photograph shows. The pattern was very clearly written, and after a few glitches (totally knitter's error) I really enjoyed it.

Finally, my most recent FO is this pair of socks:

These are my Hickory Bark Socks. The pattern is Hickory, by Jane Cochran, and it's from The Knitter's Book of Socks. This is the second pattern that I have knit from Clara Parkes' fantastic book. The yarn is Hazel Knits Entice MCN in the Salted Caramel colorway. It's squishiness personified! Even though it took me over four months to get these socks off the needles, I loved this pattern, and I would definitely knit it again.

Well, that's the latest on the knitting front for now. Now, back to your regularly scheduled hiking post.

Oh,Baby!

Well, the secret project has finally been revealed to its recipient, my knitting group friend, Paula, so I can now share it here, too. This is my Oh, Baby hat and socks, knit from the Irishgirlieknits Sweet Baby Kate pattern. The yarn is Hazel Knits Artisan Sock in the Aloha colorway, which was part of my first-ever Hazel Knits purchase back in 2009. I can't believe that it took me three years to knit something out of this happy color!

We had a baby shower for Paula on Saturday, and what a fun time it was, with games, great food and wonderful gifts! That little baby girl is going to have the most beautiful wardrobe of knitwear, not to mention two quilts and other assorted hand-crafted accessories.

In addition to the hat and socks, I also gave Paula My First Baby Surprise Jacket.

There is a story behind this gift. Paula and I were both in a Baby Surprise Jacket class at the late, lamented Village Yarn and Tea back in 2008. Several months later Paula joined our knitting class/group, and it took us quite a while to figure out that we had both been in that class. Earlier in her pregnancy, Paula brought her unfinished 2008 BSJ one Tuesday night to work on, and I remembered mine. A baby can never have to many hand knits, so my shower gift was complete!

When I knit the BSJ I wasn't sure whether it was for a boy or a girl, so I put a set of buttonholes on each side. Since Paula is having a girl, last week I closed up the left side buttonholes and sewed on these buttons that I purchased at Churchmouse Yarns & Teas over two years ago. It sure pays to plan ahead! Maybe I should get started on the gift for the next unknown baby now...

Knitting, Knitting, Done!

I know, I know, it's been forever (well, two months, anyway) since I wrote a knitting-related post. I had intended to write a review of all of my current WIPs shortly after I wrote the post about all of the things I had finished knitting in the first quarter of the year. That post just never got written, and instead, I've decided to give you shorter posts with just a couple of WIPS and/or FOs. That way, there might even be a few more knitting posts than there have been lately.

So, what am I currently working on? First up is what started out being called the Top-Down Tryout, my first top-down cardigan, Bonne Marie Burns' Eyelet Cardi. I cast on for this project in January, and progress has been very slow. So slow, in fact, that I have renamed the project The Interminable Cardigan. Here is what it looked like in April:

I'm not a whole lot further along; I just separated for the sleeves about a week ago. I hope to make faster progress now that there aren't so many stitches on the needle.

Even though my progress on this cardigan has been slow, it can't compare with one of my recent FOs. I cast on for the Selbu Modern hat in September 2009, and named the project the Slow and Steady Selbu Modern. A more accurate name would have been Slow and Not-So-Steady Selbu Modern. I was so frustrated with two-handed stranded knitting that I put the project into hibernation only two months after casting on, with only 12 rows of the 62-row chart completed. But guess what? In the intervening years, I've gotten more practice with colorwork, and this February I pulled the hat out and started working on it again. I finished knitting it on May 26, and I am so proud of it!

The big bonus, in addition to having a wonderful new hat, is that I am looking forward to my next stranded project. I have my eye on the Winter Twilight Mitts. I hope to cast on for those later this summer.

I have more in-progress and finished projects lurking, including one that has been super-secret. The secret will be revealed very soon, and as soon as that has happened, I'll be back here to tell you about it.

Whole Lotta Knitting Going On

I started looking at my Ravelry projects the other day, and I realized that there are many FOs and WIPs that I haven't written about here. Today I'm going to rectify that situation by posting photos with minimal notes of just about everything that I've finished this year that hasn't yet appeared on the blog. (I'll do a post soon on current WIPs, too.) I'll link each project to its page on Ravelry, if you need more information. Are you ready? Here we go!

Project: Comfy Kumara
I finished this hat on New Year's Eve, but it wasn't given to my niece, Mandy (modeling it in the photo), until February 19th, her birthday.

Project: What Was I Thinking? Two-Tone Socks
These are socks that I knit as a Christmas gift (but didn't finish until January 12) for Mr. D. Did I remember how wide his feet were when I started knitting from a one-of-a-kind Socks That Rock Rare Gems mill end? No, of course not! When I was just past the heel on the first sock I realized that there would never be enough yarn, so I added on another Socks That Rock Rare Gems mill end for most of the foot. When Mr. D is wearing shoes, no one will be the wiser...

Project: Teach Myself Cables Socks
These socks languished for months, mostly because I really didn't like knitting with Noro Silk Garden Sock (my hands didn't like it either). In January, I finally bit the bullet and finished the second sock. Even though I didn't like knitting with the yarn, I really like the socks, which have softened nicely with washing.

Project: Alpaca Troubador
Nancy, Jan and I knitted this scarf as a knit along. Nancy gave us the yarn, pattern and a very cute project bag for Christmas. I had some problems with dropped stitches (which should have been knit three togethers), but Nancy magically fixed them for me. Tanis Gray's Troubador is a wonderful pattern, and I love how this turned out. I still have more than a skein left, so I'm currently in search of a hat pattern to go with this. Any suggestions?

Project: Retreat Socks

I always like to have some plain socks when I am in social situations with other knitters, so I took these socks along as one of my projects for the knitting retreat I went to in January. With all of the knitting time that weekend, these moved along really quickly. The yarn is very soft for standard self-striping yarn, and it was a bargain, too—only $6.99 at WEBS.

Project: Not So Moody Blues

You may remember that I knit a Hitchhiker for my friend Jan at the end of last year. Shortly after finishing Jan's Hitchhiker I cast on one for me, and here it is! The Malabrigo sock yarn is incredibly soft and scrumptious around my neck, and I have loved wearing it in our colder and wetter than normal March weather. After knitting two of these back-to-back, I got a little bored with the pattern toward the end, but the results were definitely worth the boredom!

Next up, current WIPs, with a report on a project that has magically come back to life. I'll be back in a few days with more.