WIP Wednesday: I Swear It Looks Nicer

Yesterday I started a new project, instead of working on something that was unfinished. There was a little bit of guilt involved, but not too much, because the project I started will be fairly quick and really ought to have been done much sooner. My little sister really liked the Dragon Watcher’s Hood I made for myself, and requested one in a different colour. I agreed to do so if she purchased the yarn. This happened in April and I’ve just been the slowest of slowpokes.

This is me, the slowest of all Slowpokes. Crown Princess of keeping yarn for a while and letting other things distract her.

I knew it wouldn’t take me all that long, so I started thinking about it when the weather started to gradually cool off. We’ve had a very long warm season. Even when it was October it really wasn’t chilly enough for hats or mittens, so the demand for a hood didn’t quite pop up. Eventually it started to fluctuate and cool down–at that point a few subtle reminders about the things I promised to make started to flutter my way. I wanted to work on a few other things first, mostly because I had so many things on the needles in various stages of completion, but I knew that I needed to start working on this hood. I considered starting it a few weeks ago, but I realized that my size 15 circular needle tips were on loan to a friend. I could have started it on straights, but that didn’t seem worth it.

So Many WIPs…

Generally speaking, I try to avoid having too many projects in-progress. I don’t like thinking about all those things that I’ve started but haven’t finished yet. Unfortunately, right now I have quite a few WIPs–many more than I would prefer to have ongoing. It might not be very many for others knitters and crocheters who live for the thrill of a new project, but it’s too many for me. Unfortunately, I’m not at a good point to finish any of them up!

My oldest WIP is from July 2014–the tiny wild rose hand puff. It’s a Tiny Owl Knits pattern: tiny violet hand puff. I haven’t made any progress on this since April of this year… because I ran out of yarn and haven’t bought more. It’s easy for me to stall when I have a project that needs more yarn, since I’ve been trying to work down my stash of yarn. I know that it probably would be a good idea to buy more yarn and finish this, but every time I start to buy the yarn I need I can’t go through with it.

That’s the same problem I’ve had with this other muff: forest leaf muff. It dates from the same period as the other hand-cozy, although it’s been on hiatus longer. I also ran out of yarn and haven’t had the motivation to buy more.

WIP Wednesday: Eternal Scarf

This scarf project originated at the yarn toss for last year’s Vogue Knitting LIVE event. It bounced near my feet in its little organza bag, and a woman standing near me motioned for me to pick it up. At first, I planned to use the yarn included for some other pattern, but then I started to feel a little bit bad for neglecting the free pattern in the bag. Instead, about a month later, I cast on the Robin Scarf.

Now, I’m not sure if that was such a good idea. I have been working on this scarf off-and-on for nearly a year. It is knit on size 0/2mm needles. The yarn is a light fingering. The lace pattern is fairly simple, but it starts to really make my hands hurt after a few hours of it. I’ve made very little progress, always sneaking along a bit at a time, sometimes barely completing a full repeat in one session. I don’t want to pull it out now, but I sometimes wish I had opted for socks instead of this lace scarf. It’s not something I plan to keep for myself; hopefully whoever gets it in the end will love it. They’ll get a lot of my time and effort, that’s for sure.

I finished two pattern repeats for Wednesday. That was all I could stand before I needed to move on to something else. (I also crocheted some coasters and started a hair ribbon.)

Time for Christmas Knitting

I don’t knit for the holidays every year, but I’ve decided to do so this year! I already got a head start with a hat and cowl set, and I’ve mapped out that I needed to create the following:

1. 5 ladies’ hats
2. 3 men’s hats
3. 2 men’s cowls
4. 1 ladies’ cowl
5. 1 blanket
6. 3 unknown ladies’ items

I took advantage of a yarn sale to pick up super bulky yarn (Lion Brand Wool-Ease Thick & Quick) for 4 of the 5 ladies’ hats. It’s one of the acrylic blends I dislike the least, and ease of washing matters for a few of these recipients. I used the pattern Free Rapunzel! because I had so much fun making one for me. Whipping up these hats wound up being just about as entertaining as the first one was. It’s so quick and easy, and I love the look of the all the braids. It’s really only cutting through the pompoms that I don’t enjoy; the scissors hurt my fingers. x_x

Current State of Knitting

When I finished the Aran sweater, I only had one ball of that Irish yarn left. After thinking about it for a bit, I knit it into a small cabled tea cozy for one of my 4-cup teapots.

After that, I finally got around to a baby hat that I had agreed to knit for someone back in January… (I do not do much knitting by request, because I don’t seem to actually enjoy it and therefore I procrastinate on it as much as humanly possible. That is exactly what happened here, and the hat only took me a few hours to complete. I always forget how quick some crochet projects are…)

Pale Green Hoodlet

I’m overjoyed to have completed my Woodland Hoodlet~ It was a very quick knit, overall, and really rewarding. I was lucky, too, that my friend returned my Addi Click needles. It made the project much more fun~

The Rowan Big Wool yarn was super soft, super thick, and super toasty warm~ ♥ The weather warmed up recently–it finally feels like ☀summertime☀…but that means I’ll have to wait to enjoy this hoodlet until 🍁fall🍁. This yarn isn’t superwash, and that was really obvious when I knit with it. It was trying to felt together when I Kitchener stitched it together unless I paid attention to fibers entangling with each other.

Overall, I’m really happy with this project! ♥ I can’t wait to wear and enjoy it~

Yarn from Love Knitting and a Hoodlet Beginning

I really love the patterns in the Woodland Knits book, both those created for the book and those that existed prior to the book being published. Several of the patterns in the book were designed with Rowan Big Wool. This yarn isn’t carried by any of my local shops, and it’s pretty easy to substitute another super bulky yarn in its place for the patterns in the book, but I found myself really wanting to knit some of the patterns with that specific yarn. I found the colours very appealing, and I’m always on board for 100% Merino.

Recently a friend of mine ordered a different Rowan yarn from Love Knitting, a UK-based online yarn shop. The shipping–standard airmail–took a while, but on the whole she was very satisfied with her order. They offer an fantastic referral discount (15% off!). (Here’s a link for the referral discount.) Last weekend I saw that the yarn I had in mind was restocked in numerous colours and slightly discounted, so I placed an order–lots of skeins in a pale green, a few in a pale blue, and one in a darker green.

The ordering system is really smooth~ I like the overall graphic design of the website, visually, plus I find that it responds well. I had a confirmation email very soon, and shortly after I received a shipping notification. That was the tricky part, because I couldn’t track my package and I just had to hope it would arrive. I have notoriously bad luck with receiving mail without incident…but luckily everything worked out!

5KCBWDAY5 – Something A Bit Different

It’s the annual challenge to blog in a way different to how you normally blog.

Today’s ♥♥Loves♥♥

1. Rowan Big Wool. I am obsessed. Ever since that bundle arrived in the mail, I keep thinking about more patterns I could make with more of it to justify buying more of it. I dream of hoarding it and sitting on the wooly pile like Smaug.
   
   

   This is what I aspire to, just imagine the silly “treasure” as a much more valuable bounty: soft, beautiful, Merino yarn~ ♥

2. Tiny Owl Knits. This ties in nicely with the above, because so many of her patterns are designed to use the yarn of my current obsession. I already have that yarn in supply for three patterns from Woodland Knits: Woodland Hoodlet, Dragon Watcher’s Hood, and Tiny Violet Hand Puff. But what about Grimm’s Cottage???
   
   

   I have not forgotten about you, Grimm’s Cottage. I am merely temporarily distracted because your pattern is not in the Woodland Knits book… and I am desperately trying not to spend additional money.