Whittling Down the WIPs

There simply are not enough hours in the day! That having been said, for the first time in a long time, I feel I have my WIPs under control.

In the coming couple of months, I have a very full slate and some new projects I’m desperate to start. Lovely Lesley and I have two big shows coming up, both of which require travel and one for which I’ll be preparing and presenting demonstrations. I’ve also been blessed with the task of planning and teaching a full slate of classes for Rosehaven. That means writing the courses, designing projects, knitting the samples and writing the patterns. What a great job! 🙂

So clearing up the WIPs is not just a dream any more, it’s a necessity. I’m really enjoying my Skydottir. It is knit in the Icelandic style with the body and the sleeves worked in the round from the bottom up. The pieces are united at the underarm with a patterned yoke worked upward from there. It seemed to fly by! I have only  the yoke and neckline left to knit. 

I wanted to focus on tension with this project and, I must say, I’ve learned a lot. I’ve never been entirely satisfied with the tension on my previous stranded projects, so I thought I’d experiment with using longer floats. Carrying the left-hand yarn behind every stitch as I had been was producing a dimpled effect on the front of the fabric; catching the carried strand only every three stitches or so has just about solved the problem.

You may recall the pile of orange tweed-ish yarn-without-a-project I had kicking around? Its first incarnation was as an ill-fated throw for the living room. It was frogged and then reared its (somewhat ugly) head as a top-down sweater with a stranded yoke. Frogged once more, it can currently be seen as the opening volley in the Beach House Pullover. Despite the sorry yarn (which has more lives than Mrs. O’Leary’s cat), I’m loving this all-over cable pattern and the deep, deep ribbing. I’m in a bit of a pickle, though. I think I may be a little short of the (unfortunate) yarn. I figure I might just make it if I knit the sleeves plain, cabling only the saddle portion at the crown. I’m in trouble otherwise. This yarn is discontinued (“Pois” by Adriafil) and I haven’t been able to scare up any more.

And speaking of unfortunate yarn…the dreaded Noro Taiyo. Ugh. A dear friend saw my photo of the first pair of convertible mittens I’d made and wanted a pair exactly the same. I couldn’t bring myself to say no but should have had the presence of mind to suggest another yarn. Every time I pick them up, the working yarn virtually shatters in my hands. Terrible yarn. Just. Terrible.

More socks! Yes, indeed-y! Now that I’ve discovered the two-at-a-time thing, I feel pretty confident about jiffy-ing these out. Clearly, I’ll be knitting two-at-a-time in two different yarns on the next go-round.

Then there are the swatches for my CYC Instructor’s Course. They are, naturally, a little boring to knit but sometimes it’s fun and interesting to re-visit the fundamental skills we all take for granted. Keeps one from falling into bad habits 😉

And finally, the Big “T”, Timberline. Here it sits, all blocked and ready to be sewn! Perhaps I’ll have a finished object to show next post?