WIP Wednesday: A Silken Dozen

Halloween Tarot

Well, it's kinda cheating ... but it is a sort of Work In Progress .... Titch and I have been married 12 years today .... according to Wikipedia, 12 years is silk and fine linen - so I guess that could translate to silk yarn and purty knickers, don't you ?

WIP Wednesday 98: Yarn Feast

Vision Quest Tarot

So we're talking accumulation as we have gone from mojo-less without any ideas, to having a promising queue and too many ideas. Famine to feast. But we do not repine, as we are a glutton. Have you noticed, the royal 'we' gives us some unique grammatical and/or syntax issues ? Oh well. You'll have to live with it.

Having sorted out the snarls from winding, I very quickly got to the knotted openwork section of the 'Summer Flies' shawl, I ripped it all out and started over on 5mm needles, as the yarn seems more like a sport/DK than a 4ply/fingering, and was coming out a little ... thick ... on the 4mm needles. I am loving the soft, silky feel and summery color:

I have modified it already by adding an extra set of eyelets and another butterfly section following thetanull's notes, to make the shawl bigger. It's a straightforward knit that one can manage without errors even during the excitement of the England - Ukraine match when one is marvelling at the ineptness of Wayne Rooney and his several goal misses.

And in the post I have received as a super-late birthday treat from my Evil Twin and my Good Twin, this:

A beautiful crimson Aran-weight silk and lambswool chenille yarn. There is enough for a sweater for me: my idea being, that as they gifted it to me, that will be pressure to use the yarn, and I have not made anything for myself at all yet, and then also when I wear the sweater, I will think of them.

And in pursuit of my goal of making the four shawls for important ladies ( two down, two to go) I have found the appropriate yarn for the remaining two; I already knew that for one I needed this olive Crazy Zauberball:

But I was having trouble finding what I wanted for the other shawl, until I visited the Addicted2Knitting website, which stocks some unusual Zauberball colorways that I have not found elsewhere; it was here that I found the colorway 'Cloud 7', which is just right:

So yes, I am sitting in the sunshine gloating over my stash and my plans for it: a most enjoyable feeling, let me tell you. You can find other gloatees over at Tami's Amis ....

WIP Wednesday 40: Dilemma

I have two I want to talk about today: firstly, I'm devising a new scarf pattern, as I couldn't find one that I liked for DH's middle brother's birthday present. I spoke about the yarn (Sublime Baby Cashmere Merino Silk DK) already .... I love this stuff: it is soft, smooth, stretchy, and this 'Button' colorway is one my mother would have labelled as classy, and I would have labelled boring. I am older now and can begin to explore the concept that maybe bright is not always best, although I hasten to add that I am still a long way from being able to appreciate shrubs: I do not care about 8 million different shades of green, I want real color.

Inky thinks that this should be a Seekret Projeckt; but I am 90% sure that this BIL does not surf the interwebz. Certainly not this blog.

















So watch this space for a new free pattern release when I've all finished and done ....

The other WIP has really been hibernating, and now I need some help deciding what to do. It is the Willow Leaf Stole (Rav link) by Linda Choo. I'm using 1150 yards of 4ply silk 8/60NM from Colourmart - and I still don't really get what that means - on 3.25mm needles. I like the pattern, although the repeats are large enough to be unwieldy; I like the yarn. I'm just not liking them in combination. But. I have got quite some way, even though, with the best will in the world and some anticipated severe blocking, mine will be a scarf, not a stole ....



So, here's the dilemma of the title: do I

a) frog it and find something else (that will be a proper stole size) to knit with this yarn ? If so, what ?

b) continue on because I will love the feeling of pious righteousness when I've completed it ?

c) some other really logical option, so obvious that I haven't thought of it yet ?

Don't forget to hop on over to Tami's Amis for other mainly fibre-related blog posts as part of Work-in-Progress Wednesday ...