Lizzardie Knits

Various WIPs

I kept meaning last week to post a "here's what I'm working on" entry, but I never got around to it, and not much has changed. I do have one FO to report, but I'll wait until tomorrow on that one. It's the socks I made for the Loopy Ewe Swap, and now that they've been received, I'm in the clear to post about them. I might wait until I get my package from my pal, though, which should come sometime this week (I think - she emailed me to say that she was on vacation last week and would get the package out this week).

Anyhow, most of my attention lately has been devoted to just a handful of projects, all of which I'm trying to pay attention to. The first is a pair of mittens. I used two sources for my mittens - the first was Mittens 101 from Knitty to get the basic formula on what to do. I've used this before and it came out well, so I figured I would stick with it. I didn't want a plain mitten, though, so I flipped through some patterns and finally settled on Stansfield #11 from Sensational Knitted Socks. That gave me this:



Yes, the cuffs are incredibly long. I wanted them that way, because I always feel that mitten/glove cuffs are too short - when I move around, there's always exposed skin between where the cuff ends and where the cuff of my coat falls. I'm hoping these long cuffs will prevent that. I used Knit Picks Cadena, by the way, and I think the alpaca will make them nice and warm.

I didn't want just plain mitts, though, and so I had always planned to add a "fancy" cuff (directions given in Mittens 101) with Knit Picks Twirl. I actually picked the pattern stitch based on it going well with the nubby texture of twirl.

Here are the mitts with the cuffs on but not sewn up:



I did take care of sewing them up over the weekend, though, so now they're finished. I'll do a proper FO entry once I have a chance to wash and photograph them.

Once the mittens were near completion, I cast on for another project - another lace shawl! I have a nice little (I stress little and I like it that way) lace yarn collection, so I was itching to try something new. I turned to my favorite lace source, Victorian Lace Today and chose to match some single ply merino laceweight from The Plucky Knitter with the Shoulder Shawl in Cherry Leaf Pattern on page 134. Here it is after the first 44 rows:



I've now completed 15 leaf repeats. Because the pattern starts at the point and works up to the neckline, it doesn't look much different than before, just bigger. The pattern says to work 15 repeats (like I've done) but it looks a little small so I think I'm going to add in 3 more (I'd do 6 but I don't think I have the yardage - I've already put in a lifeline at 15 in case I have to go back) to make it just a little bigger. It will also have a knitted-on border. I just want something I can put over my shoulders and tie, and I think this will be perfect (maybe ready for my trip to Atlanta at the end of March? We'll see).

I've also been working on Tubey, my poor, neglected, oldest WIP. I finished the shrug part of the pattern about a week and a half ago, and it looked a little like this:



Sorry for such a shadowy picture. I'm using Knit Picks Swish Worsted, and I love it. And yes, I'm doing pretty much the same colors as in the pattern because I loved how they looked together so much! On Sunday I picked up the stitches for the body and I'm through about 4 inches. I tried it on and I *think* it's actually going to fit me and look good, which I'm excited about. This will be my first pullover with sleaves, as the other sweaters I've made have been cardigans (that look... okay) or tanks. I'm getting excited about finishing it and having something cute to wear.

And last but not least, I've been working on Roza's Socks. I would have taken another picture, but they look pretty much the same as before, just a little further along, but not to the heel yet. I plan on making nice-sized cuffs since the yardage is good and the pattern is stretchy. Plus I'm not feeling the sock love these days (maybe I did too much?) so it's nice to work on other projects. Socks will always be my portable project of choice, though, so I won't ever give them up completely (and I think they'll make a comeback over the summer when the only thing I can stand to knit made out of wool in the heat is socks!).

posted by Lizzardie @ 12:49:00 PM