It’s Work-in-Progress Wednesday! You get a peek at the things that I’m currently working on. It’s all part of the larger plan to get all of my WIPs finished. If I show them to you when they are partly done, you’ll want to see what they look like when they are completely done and so I’ll feel guilty if I don’t finish them because I don’t want to disappoint you. And then we can have FO Fridays! It’s all about psychology. And guilt.

Work-in-Progress #1

Together Apart by Melanie Berg I started this on 8/2/2020 as a knit-a-long with some of my knitting peeps. The name says it all: We are knitting it together while we have to be apart.

It looked like this several weeks ago. Then I got to the first lace section (of several) and I got stalled. It’s a tiny bit advanced for a lace pattern, and while I’m experience with lace, at that time, my brain just hurt trying to do it.

But last week, I got my lace mojo back and now I’m cranking this shawl out:

It’s got these nice, easy garter sections, and then a pop of color with two rows of the contrasting color, then the lace sections.

Here is a closeup of the lace:

….which doesn’t show you much because it is not blocked yet. Wait until you see it after it is washed and blocked (stretched). What a difference – one of the most amazing things about knitting lace is the difference pre- and post-blocking. You’ll see.

Work-in-Progress #2

A pair of socks. One of many pairs “on the needles.”

For my “plain” socks – ones with no knitted pattern – I always use the Classic Socks pattern from Melinda Goodfellow (aka the Yankee Knitter). Great basic pattern in all sizes. Here, I’ve used the WYS Signature 4 ply sock yarn. It is a self-patterning yarn: All the WOW without all the effort (UGH) of changing colors.

Most of the time when I knit socks, I knit them two-at-a-time with each one on a separate set of needles. I knit the cuff of one sock, then the cuff of the other, then a little of the leg on one, then a little of the leg on the other. You get the idea. This helps to ensure I don’t get SSS (Second Sock Syndrome), in which I don’t want to knit the second sock, because when I finish the first sock, it feels like I should be finished with the project, but I’m not because I have to knit exactly the same thing a second time and that is just kind of a bummer.

However, this time, the yarn was already in a ball and not easily split into two separate sections, because of an aforementioned affliction I have called IMPATIENCE. I needed something to start right away (at the time, whenever that was…. no start date documented for these) so I grabbed the yarn and the needles and started.

Stay tuned for progress.

Stash Enhancement

So those are the current projects I’m working on. Now, how about some stash enhancement news? In other words, want to see some yarn I bought???

My WIP reduction focus in no way included any promise not to buy new yarn. The WIP reduction focus sort of included that I wouldn’t start any new projects, although that will likely sort of be revised, as soon as some majorly irresistible pattern crosses my path. (Like this…) (Or this…)

My LYS, The Spinning Room, was having their 4th Anniversary sale this week. So, how could I NOT support the six women who own the shop and their success of owning the shop for 4 years???

I got some HiKoo Simpliworsted Spray in a denim-y color (top) and two skeins of Cascade Heritage Wave sock yarn. Don’t ask what I’m making with these. Seriously, don’t ask. I have no idea.

And then…. THEN I got an order from NORWAY in the mail. I couldn’t resist getting the Forest Path sock pattern by Patricia Fortune. Click there to see it. So, so, so adorable. And I saw on Ravelry that they were selling kits with the exact colors in the pattern, which I loved. So, I went on the interwebs and bought a kit. From NORWAY!

It took three weeks to get here and came like this:

Shrink-wrapped and smooshed flat for cheaper shipping! It fits in a flat envelope.

Once you free them from the shrink wrap, the balls plump up to what they are supposed to be.

And the yarn kit came with these adorable handmade-on-Patricia’s-farm birch wood progress keepers:

They match the pattern!

I definitely can’t wait to start these. Here’s where I start bargaining with myself: Maybe if I don’t quite have all my WIPs done, but I have a couple of my sock WIPs done, I can start these. Sounds good to me. What do you think?

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