I spent my days off this week photographing all the knitting WIPs (Works in Progress) I could find. (Notice the qualification.) My Facebook friends may have seen these when I displayed them Friday afternoon. In a way it was kind of like airing dirty laundry.
So, for those curious, here is the more complete explanation of my knitting procrastinations. Yesterdays post had a picture of the Varsity Socks I'm knitting. Fun pattern. I like knitting 2 socks at once. Pretty close to done on those.
This is the oldest project in my WIP pile. How do I know for sure? My WIP reset button was pushed in 2003 when my house burned in the Southern California Cedar Fire along with
hundreds of other houses here in San Diego. Gone were years worth of hand-knit and hand-spun projects,quilts, etc. This piece of knitting I happened to throw into the car for "something to do in case we're stuck in a hotel for a few days". 2 years later we were finally back in the house but the shawl is not complete. This is hand-spun lace-weight yarn made from hand-dyed Bluefaced Leicester. Someday it will be an Orenburg-
style lace shawl.
A friend of mine who recently took up knitting is knitting hats for the homeless people who
dwell in the canyons nearby. I decided this would make a good project for me as well, not only for doing good works, but it will help use up some of the yarns in my cupboards as well. This is a double-knit hat pattern I designed a few years back. The yarns I'm using are Paton's Soy Wool Stripes and something soft and fluffy but had lost it's label. This is my current 'mindless knitting' project that I've been carrying around with me.
A beaded scarf awaits finishing. A soft wool boucle yarn. I began
a few items I had hoped to give as gifts but then injured my
wrists in a fall. The didn't heal for most of the fall so no hand-
knit gifts this Christmas. :-(
This is another project made with hand-spun yarn. It's wool, mohair, angora, angelina for glitz. I found the shawl pattern at a yarn store in Portland OR and enjoy knitting this project. It's currently on the sidelines. It is probably about 2/3 finished.
I love this pattern for an Edwardian coat. I began knitting it with
Paton's Classic Wool. It was my main knitting project and was knitting up beautifully and then - the wrist injury. It sat for weeks on end in my knitting basket until the other day when I took it out to photograph it......
and discovered that carpet beetles had found their way into the basket. Oh dear. I'll need to frog this back past the hole. :-(
I promised my daughter, Samantha, an Einstein coat. I began this last summer and it's about 1/4 finished. Quite a bit to go on this project. The yarn is Lion Bran Watercolors.
A fuzzy, red shawl from a pattern called the "Truly Tasha's Shawl" which can be found at Wooly West:
http://www.woolywest.com/notebook_shawl.html
I have made several of these shawls over the years and enjoy both knitting and wearing them.
This mobius scarf made in green cashmere has nothing left to do except weave the seams together. I promised this to my sister Christmas 2008. I really need to get this done, hm?
This is the beginnings of a Fir Cone Shawl. I had one that I wore all the time before the fire. I rather lost my enthusiasm for this one as the yarn I chose is not very soft. The project has be languishing and will probably continue to do so for awhile. I may just frog this and use the yarn for weaving or felting.
This is a soft yarn. Lovely shades of green hand-dyed, hand-carded and hand-spun yarn is being made up into a simple shawl. The fiber has loves of kid mohair in it for softness and lustre. Yummy!
One of the many hazards of sock-knitting is demonstrated here: Single Sock Syndrome? Sort of. Actually, I lost the little sticky note with my pattern notes - needle size, how many round here, decreases there, etc. It's going to be fun figuring it out.
This is my current 'complicated' knitting project - what I do when I have time to devote to reading the pattern and concentrating. This is definitely not mindless knitting, but it's fun. It's a pattern called 'Irish Moss' from Alice Starmore's "Aran Knitting".
A double-knit scarf experiment. I love this variegated yarn, but am having trouble figure out a truly deserving project for it. I think I'l need to do a few more rows before decide whether or not I like the scarf pattern. That said, my daughter Alison has laid claim to it already.
Strictly speaking, this is not a WIP since I have not begun. But I really, really want to. A lot. It's a cool Fair Isle laptop cosy. Am I a knitting geek or what?
To show that I do occasionally finish what I begin, here is a simple ribbed hat, completed as last week.
And I've finished a pair of socks as well! Very comfortable, very bright. These were knit 2 at a time from yarn dyed from a sock blank. The dyeing technique is a lot of fun and not difficult at all. I'm going to have to do more on my next dye day. The sock blanks can be found at KnitPicks: http://www.knitpicks.com/yarns/Bare_Sock_Yarn_Dye_Blank__D5420174.html
And by the way, just to be completely honest, I started a new project last night, albeit with stash yarns. A baby sweater - I have a couple of friends who are pregnant. I'll try to remember to take a picture of it soon.
