It’s Time to Finish All the Things

And here we are again, the WIP KAL which starts 22 September and goes to the end of the year. Although I have my preferred number of WIPs, at this time in the year I always seem to have around ten. This year I have 11. I am not sure how it gets so high but I can immediately dismiss three long term projects leaveing me with eight projects to work on before year end.

These photos show them all lined up in order of start date, including the long term projects but does not include the two projects in the car. From left to right are, mitred square blanket, lace cardigan, crochet blanket, jacket, crochet shawl, squares made from last December’s swap, Pi shawl, baby blanket, baby dress. (The mitred square blanket, crochet blanket and Pi shawl are my long term projects that I will not rush to work on.)

 

 

As usual I would like to work on just two projects at a time; one requiring concentration and one not. There’s just one problem with that, amongst all those projects there is just one that does not require concentration and that’s the project using last year’s swap yarns and even that isn’t hours and hours of mindless knitting as I am at the stage of picking up stitches, knitting a few rows and picking up more stitches.

I will work on my two oldest projects first - the cardigan and the jacket. After being on the needles for so long I can see the finish line for the cardigan; I am currently working the front band as a join-as-you-go to the body. I tried it on before I started the join and I am really happy with it. I would like to get it finished by the end of the month. The red jacket just needs button loops. I have been procrastinating about this for so long as my original idea didn’t work so now I just have to try some different loops. I tried this on at the same time as I was trying the lace cardigan and I do really like it; so time to get a move on so I can actually wear it. Once I have finished those two I can work on the crochet shawl. I don’t think it will take too long once I give it all my attention. The two hats won’t take long to finish either. One needs a load of ends sewn in and the other will be finished on the next road trip.

This leaves the baby blanket and the baby dress. It is unlikely that I will finish the blanket before the end of the year. This is the project that has lace on every row. I am not going to rush to finish it as I will be happier finishing the other items first. I thought I might get the dress finished before this KAL started and I am really close. But I remembered I want to redo the sleeve edgings, so it will be a few more days until it is completely finished. At least it doesn’t need buttons.

I like writing this out. At first glance I feel like I have loads of projects, but writing my plans and noting how close to finishing I am on certain items has me confident that I can finish seven projects by the end of the year.

What a Hike

We were away last week, and usually I’d be writing about vacation knitting. I might do that at a later date but today I want to tell you about a hike we did that was pretty amazing. For two reasons; 1. that I actually did it and 2. what was waiting at the end of the hike.

We have been staying in Tucson near one of the national parks. When looking at hiking options, we read many references to a cave; usually that the hiker hadn’t found it, also on one hike we bumped into some people who said they were now going to look for the cave and when I asked they said it was special because it had ancient paintings in it. (As an aside this family, parents and adult child, had recently moved from Minnesota because they didn’t want to do winter anymore. Totally in agreement with that.)

DH did some (re)searching and found a blog post that gave detailed instruction with photos as to how to find this cave as the trail was not marked on any of the plentiful maps throughout the park.

Off we went on our little adventure. We were able to find the trail which was an off shoot of the main trail and was well laid out but not signposted. After going up and around a hill we came to a wash, looked up and saw the cave opening. At this point I might have said something like I’m not going up there. Also at this part of the hike the trail was less marked out but still easy to follow.

What we’re aiming for.

 

 

The last part was a bit of a scrabble, but I made it. This is the view looking out from the cave. I definitely didn’t allow myself to think I have to get back down again. 

 

 

The entrance to the cave was wide and flat so it was easy to stand or sit and look at the paintings. It is amazing that they have not been defaced and nobody has added their own art or carving. My husband is sitting down in this picture so you can get an idea of the size of the cave. 

 

 

 

I’m really glad we did this and I decided to just go for it and not think about it.

WIPping Wednesday and Finished Friday

I am pleased to report that I have some finished items and I have not started anything new since I finished them. (But I did start a new item the day after my last post.)

I have finished a cardigan, a pair of socks and two hats. One is a baby gift and the other was the charity hat that was in the car that had reached the decrease stage. August was really for finishing and not starting new projects. The project I did cast on is a gift that I was hoping would be an easy knit but there is lace knitting on every row. It is fine for movie knitting. I am working a little each day on the lace cardigan and will soon be at a major decrease row; I’m hoping for a quick finish when I reach that point.

Having finished my easy knitting (cardigan and socks) I picked up the blanket squares from the yarn swap. The pattern is easy to memorize and makes for a quick knit. Couple more squares to go and then I have to make a decision about how I want to join them. I am pleased with how they are turning out and hope I do not have to buy any more grey yarn.

I don’t have any photos of the finished cardigan as it really has been too warm for modeled photos but I am really happy with the fit.

The socks were for July/August challenge. I made a pattern that I had started in 2015 and for some reason I had abandoned. The yarn eventually becoming a different pair of socks. The pattern is Coexist and the yarn is SSK Yarners Glitz which I won in September 2021 from Sock Knitters Anonymous.The pattern is divided into six parts with four choices for each part. I made slips of paper with the choices for each part and husband blindly picked. It just so happened that he picked the same leg pattern each time. Although this was a fun thing to do, I would exercise caution as some patterns are stretchier than others.

 

The hat is Turn a Square, an easy but interesting pattern. I started it at the end of December and it became my car project, which is why it has taken eight months to complete.

 

The other hat is a baby hat for my nephew’s baby. The pattern is Sylvi and became my Friday night convert knitting.It looks a bit strange as it is modeled on an American Girl Doll. This was another easy knit with easy to memorise pattern.

 

 

Finished Friday August

After my last post I like the idea of Finished Friday as it gives me a sense of accomplishment especially as I already have a finished item to show. This is July’s hat. July for the month I knitted it and for the name of the hat. It could also be called Summer Concert Hat as the outdoor Friday concerts have returned and I worked on this hat during those events. It is an easy pattern but does involve reading a chart or pattern for every row. I used madeline tosh Vintage which I have used for two other hats. There is still some left which should be enough for the rib border of a hat.

 

WIPping Wednesday 2022 Style

As I haven’t been posting much I was going to do a six-month round up of all my WIPs. I have been doing this when there has been the yearly challenge of WIP finishing and at the start of the year but I think I was too embarrassed to say how many projects I have on the go.

Finishing projects I started at the beginning of the year has been slow as there has been so much gift knitting, all of it from stash, whether new yarn or leftovers. Plus I have four knitting projects and one sewing project that need buttons and I am going to have to go button shopping. Which involves waiting for a sale or coupons and then the agonizing search for just the right ones. Having these almost but not quite finished projects adds to the feeling of too many projects and never finishing anything.

I usually have a hat and socks on the needles, although I don’t start new ones at the beginning of the month unless I have finished the previous month. There is no specific challenge in August in the Sock Knitters group so I have another month to finish July’s cast on.I haven't started a hat for August yet and I think that is from the feeling of too many WIPs. I'm not even sure if at this point I will make a hat this month and just work on the gift knitting.

I stopped working on the blanket squares from the swap yarn when I had to order more yarn. I did not pick it up again as I decided it would be better to concentrate on the two cardigans. (One of which is nearly finished. The other is the lace cardigan, which I work on every week and am on the last part, although it is the biggest part because the sleeves and body have been joined.) I have used half of the swap yarns and just realized it is August, so I better get going if I want to get all the squares completed by December.

I have two easy hat projects in the car. This is because I got to the top decreases on one and the pattern said place markers. I could have done it without but chose not to. As we were at the start of a 2+ Hour drive I started a crochet hat.

I have one other project that I started at the beginning of the year which has not been touched for a long time. It is a crochet project which was put to one side when I started the Tunisian crochet make along: and there it can stay until I have finished some of these WIPs.

So there it is, a WIPping Wednesday update. All I have to do now is finish some things so I can have a Finished Friday.

Gift Sewing

I have written a few times that I have not shown much progress this year as there has been a lot of gift making. Also, I have been a bit neglectful as it is school holidays and I have been looking after grandchildren. Some days this gives me extra knitting time but not much else gets done.

I have a number of expecting parents in my circle, one has already had a gift and the baby and I had plenty of time to consider and make something for the next baby. I had chosen a pattern – a toy – but I would need yarn and that started all the thought of what yarn would be best etc, etc. And then the baby was born very early and stayed in hospital and I still didn’t do anything. And, boom, suddenly two months went by and baby was home and I would be seeing mother. I had to purchase a gift from the whole group and make something.

I had been sewing some baby jackets and I had one nearly finished, just needed the binding on the sleeves and a fastener at the neck. This is the third of these jackets I have made and will give more details when I have gifted the others.

The fabric was from stash and I made this one reversible.

 

More Socks

I have been knitting away (and sewing) but this year’s knitting has been, big projects, gift knitting that can’t be shown and hats and socks.

So here we are with another pair of socks. These were for June’s challenge and a nice break from the last pair as these did not need the same amount of concentration. In March I explained my own restrictions on what I could knit for a challenge. This was, mainly, to stop me from knitting for the sake of a challenge and to use patterns I already own. June was the exception I allowed myself as one of the designers was Rose Hiver. I have been following her progress in the SKA group as she became more confident of offering her patterns to the general public and then charging for them. I had encouraged her from the outset to make her patterns paid for but she was reluctant at first. 

For this challenge, I knit Harvest Dew using Round Mountain Fibers yarn that I had purchased in the last closing down sale. This pattern really lends itself to highly variegated yarn. My plan was to knit the cuffs, heels and toes in a plain colour but I ended up using the plain colour only on the cuffs. I was halfway through the first heel when I remembered I was going to use different yarn and decided not to frog back. I didn’t use the plain yarn for the toes as I was continuing the pattern while working the toe decreases. This does mean that there is plenty of that yarn left for a complete pair of socks.

I was surprised at how much yarn this pattern used, About 70g of the main colour and I did not work them as long as usual as the yarn is stretchy. I soaked (in Soak) and blocked these to show off the pattern and to soften up the yarn.

 

 

I found that photographing these on top of my laptop showed the colours best but did mean that I had to get rid of the background distractions as best as i could.

A Bright Hat

My goal for charity knitting for 2022 is to use as much yarn from stash as possible. I have yarn left over from previous charity knits and yarn that I was given. I also wanted to knit the Year of Hats each month. This has not always worked out as the priority was using stash.

The hat for June is a two coloured stripe, so easier to find yarns in my stash. I chose a variegated and a plain. The variegated is dull and the plain is bright. I thought the dull yarn would tone down the bright but it worked the other way as the bright red made the dull colours look brighter.