Category Archives: Work in Progress Wednesday

Work in Progress Wednesday 12th February

This week I haven’t done a huge amount of knitting again. I’ve had work to do, and we’ve done more other stuff. For instance we went to the coast on Saturday (yes, I know Southampton is the coast, but I mean the real coast with cliffs and sea and beaches and things) which was crazy. I’ll get some pics up when I can.

Sorry about picture quality. It’s so dark and dreary that none of the lights are helping so I had to use the flash which washed everything out a bit.

I’ve done a bit more on Nick’s sock.

I’ve finished the first of Al’s crazy square socks.

And I’ve started this month’s Flora KAL sock. The link is considerably less interesting than last time. The flower is the snowdrop, and I’m using the pattern Snowdrop Socks. I am as usual changing the toe and heel to suit my preferences.

I still haven’t started any dressmaking, for several reasons. I need to tidy my desk, I need to obtain fabric, and I’m trying to work out patterns.

Work in Progress Wednesday 29th January

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I haven’t done a great deal of crafting this week. I started Nick’s socks. Then I undid them and started again. They’re pretty slow going due to the amount of twisted cables on them. They’re looking nice so far though. I’m using the Gimli pattern (chosen by Nick) with the Solstice Yarns purple that I showed last week.

As something a little simpler for when I’m not feeling like following exact directions, I’ve finally started the socks for Al that I promised her in October. She likes bright colours so I thought it was time I used my Trekking Hand Painted in the Brazil colourway that I’ve had for a while. I mixed it with King Cole Zig Zag in a dark red to make them suitably contrasting. I’m using the Bisenkörbchen pattern, with the Fish Lips Kiss heel and I’ve swapped them to be toe up. It’s my first time doing mosaic knitting like this and I like how it’s working.

I’ve knitted a few rows on my Thermal sleeves, but that’s about it.

Work in Progress Wednesdays at Tami’s Amis

Work in Progress Wednesday 22nd January

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I’ve been busy this week. Rather busy indeed.

I have very nearly finished my Zora cardigan. Finally, after nearly a year and a half since starting it, it’s all sewn up. All that’s left to do is sew in yet more ends, and block it. Yay! It’s nice to finally have this done.

I’ve also finished my Irate Squirrel socks. They’re a little smaller than my usual socks but they actually fit better so I might do future socks like this.

My new yarn arrived from Solstice Yarns. It’s Tidal Sock Yarn. The purple was chosen by Nick for a pair of socks that I promised him as a late Christmas present, and the gold/brown colours I couldn’t resist buying for myself. No idea what to do with it yet, but the colours were so pretty I had to get it.

Next on my list, is to finish my Thermal, and also get Nick’s socks started. I also want to do some sewing this week but I won’t talk about that much until it’s done!

Work in Progress Wednesdays at Tami’s Amis

Work in Progress Wednesday 15th January

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As anticipated, I managed to finish my Demalangeni Shawl. It’s washed, blocked and I wore it yesterday. It’s lovely and soft and warm and I love how it turned out. It’s made with Araucania Ranco.

The socks I showed you last week for the Flora KAL on Ravelry actually got frogged. Again. I then started to think outside the box, and found the perfect pattern. I’m now almost finished on the first sock. The theme was that the pattern name or yarn name had to link somehow to dogwood, silver birch or witch hazel. I chose silver birch, for an amusing reason.

My mum told me an amusing story one day when I visited. My parents have a silver birch in their garden which is used to feed the birds. Their cat, Matt is quite content to watch the birds and not bother them. He does however have a strong hatred of squirrels. One morning, a visiting squirrel decided to try and steal some of the bird food. Matt spotted the squirrel and sat himself at the bottom of the tree. There are no other trees around that the squirrel could have escaped into, so it was stuck. If it came down, Matt was eagerly waiting for it. As the squirrel grew in confidence, it would edge down the tree to try and steal some food. Matt didn’t like this, and so made appropriate moves and noises to suggest to the squirrel that this was a very bad idea, and it should stay as far up the tree as possible. This continued until dusk, when Matt finally grew bored (or probably hungry) and decided to head inside and finally allow the squirrel to escape. No squirrels have been seen in the garden since. Here is Matt.

This little story is why I chose the pattern Irate Squirrel for my January Flora Knit-a-long socks. Here is my progress. As usual, I’m using King Cole Zig Zag (I have a huge stash of it) in a conveniently squirrelly grey.

This week, inspired by my knitting group, I’ve finally picked up my Zora cardigan to try and finally finish it. So far I’ve done some seaming, but don’t really have anything to show. I’ve pretty much finished the knitting apart from the collar and front band, so it really shouldn’t take me too long now I’ve finally gotten around to it!

Work in Progress Wednesdays at Tami’s Amis

Work in Progress Wednesday 8th January

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I have a few things to show this Work in Progress Wednesday as I’ve been knitting quite a bit this week, especially Sunday when I allowed myself a day of knitting. During that day I finished my Rough Weather socks. I hadn’t even reached the heel at the start of the day so I think I did pretty well.

The rest of the time I knitted my Demalangeni shawl, which is taking shape rather nicely. I love the stitch pattern, and also the colour which is odd since I’m not usually a great lover of brown. I’m hoping to get it finished before next week.

I’ve also started (about five times because I couldn’t get it exactly how I wanted) my first pair of socks for the flora knit a long on Ravelry. The theme is either dogwood, silver birch or witch hazel. Initially I wanted to make the pattern bare bark in a silver birch colour, but the few yarns I found that have been perfect were either too expensive or impossible to find. So, I’m actually knitting Branching Out with a grey background and red branches, which reminded me of the red dogwood.

I haven’t started any sewing yet, so nothing to show on that front I’m afraid. Hopefully I’ll have something by next week.

Happy New Year!

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Sorry it’s been a bit quiet at Crafterways over Christmas and New Year. I hope everyone has had a lovely break.

Works in Progress

I’ve got a few things on the go that I plan on completing in the not too distant future.

The first is my Rough Weather socks from Think Outside the Sox. I thought they were suitable considering the weather we’ve been having lately! I finished the first one over Christmas and want to get the second done fairly soon. I’m using Regia sock yarn for a change. I’ve had it in my stash for a while and it’s the perfect colour for these socks.

The second, my Thermal, hasn’t really grown much. I took it with me to knit over Christmas but didn’t take any spare yarn. This would have been fine had one ball not decided to be thinner than the other, so I had to stop and wait until I could swap it out for a real one. Not sure why that happened, but it was cheap yarn so that might explain it.

The third, and final for non-hibernating projects, is my Demalangeni Shawl. I’ve had this yarn for a while, and I finally found the perfect shawl for it. It’s Araucania Ranco which I love, and I’m hoping it turns out well. It looks it so far!

Christmas

For Christmas, I got a ball winder and swift. I’ve wanted these for a while. I immediately set about using them on my new Exmoor Sock Yarn as it’s the only thing I had.

When I got back to my stash, I then also wound some yarn that I had previously hand wound. I love the neat cakes the ball winder creates, and they’re so much easier to knit from than hand wound balls.

For Christmas I also received a little tripod, so hopefully that will improve the quality of my photos here considerably!

Coming Up

This year I am setting several crafty challenges for myself. The first is to knit a pair of socks every month. A group on Ravelry has set a theme (flora) and you have to find and knit patterns that in some way relate to a particular flower. It’ll be quite a challenge, but hopefully by the end of it I’ll (and various other people) will end up with some more lovely hand knit socks.

With some of my Christmas money I bought this book on dressmaking and this is where my second challenge comes in. For several years I have attempted to teach myself, with no help from books or anything, how to make clothes. I can make simple skirts, but that’s about it. So I decided it was about time I learned how to do it properly. Hopefully in the not too distant future you’ll see works in progress and finished objects not only from knitting, but also sewing!

My final challenge is to finish things! I’m really bad at finishing anything that isn’t socks or a shawl, so my challenge is to not start too many things. I need to at least finish my Zora cardigan, and not let myself start a new one until Thermal is complete. That is going to be quite difficult seeing as I found this for half price in the John Lewis sale.

It’s Wendy Roam in a lovely blue colour. I’m going to use it doubled so whichever cardigan I choose to make from it doesn’t take forever.

Have you set yourself any crafty challenges for the year? I’d love to hear about them!