All the WIPs...

... so much to do, so little time.

When I had that year off from crafting (more or less), I neglected a lot of projects, and I've been revisiting them, one by one, with a view to making some room for new projects in my life.

I've already written about the Purple Cashmere Socks, which had been languishing in my WIP pile forever, but that isn't the end of it, not at all.

I recently pulled out a truly ancient project, which was never particularly exciting to me, but which, hopefully, will eventually result in something quite useful.

Ages ago I bought some blue 100% wool yarn on ebay. When the yarn arrived I realised that it was a really dull, undefinable blue, and also not particularly soft. It felt... kind of old and fusty. But it was 100% wool, and that's always useful for felting, right?  I finally settled on a kind of satchel bag, but rather than knitting it up as a pattern and then felting it to size I thought, why not knit this up as a really sturdy rectangle and then just cut it into pieces and sew it together? And that's what I did, or rather, what I started to do. I used 3 strands of yarn together to create a really bulky and strong fabric, and started knitting.

Is there anything less exciting than a stockinette stitch rectangle in a solid colour? Needless to say, I never finished.

That is, until now! I finished the dreaded massive rectangle a couple of weeks ago and stuffed it in the washing machine. It took 3 wash cycles and an extra spin, but it finally reached the desired density. For now the felted rectangle sits on the armrest of our sofa to protect the fabric from Jack the cat, who likes to crouch up there, but I'm planning my satchel bag...

Next eternal WIP - the Blue Ripple Blanket. Again, this was started years ago, probably sometime in 2015, but in a fit of insanity I made this so wide that it would probably cover a double bed. As a result each row takes absolutely ages to crochet, and I also constantly managed to run out of yarn. I've started working on this again a few weeks ago and already had to re-order all the colours. What on earth was I thinking?

I do like this blanket, though, and I reckon if I can just bring myself to knit a few rows each week it should be done in a year or so, and without me actually having to put too much effort and time in on a day-to-day basis. 

The last project I dug out to finish are the Stripey Mitts.

ETA: piccy of the stripey mitts!

This is a project I was sort of making up as I was going along, even though I was nominally following a pattern, and I finished one mitt without writing down any instructions to replicate the pattern for the second (thanks, past self, that was helpful...) so it's going to take a bit of time to find my way back into this project. They are pretty darn cute, though, so I'm determined to wear them next winter!

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A Year of Projects

All the socks...

I've been on a bit of a sock-knitting binge this past week. 

First I pulled out that gorgeous red Regia sock yarn that I bought a couple of summers ago on Borkum, and finally found a good pattern for it. I wanted something with some texture because I tend to prefer solid colours for those kinds of pattern, but I didn't want it to become too complex because, well, I know myself and the sock knitting... I didn't want this to become another endless WIP.

I finally settled on the Hedgerow socks. The first few rows were, not exactly confusing, because it's not a difficult pattern, but I couldn't quite see how it was coming together. It all just seemed really random and looked chaotic. Now, a few repeats into the pattern I can see my way more clearly and it's coming together rather nicely.

While I've been busy with this project, the other day, while digging around in my office, I also managed to unearth another ancient WIP. It was a sock, knitted in purple cashmere yarn, held double-stranded to make a slightly bulkier sock. I had only knitted slightly more than that cuff of sock one, and had then evidently given up because I couldn't be bothered to figure out how to do the heel. I took it downstairs and after digging around a bit on Ravelry I found a dk sock pattern that seemed close enough to my stitch count to adapt. 

My sock had 44 stitches, while this pattern was for 40 stitches, but the heel worked out fine by substituting the 19 stitches for the heel flap for 21 stitches, and the short rows for K9 rather than the K8 required in the pattern. I pretty much winged it, but it worked!



I finished the first sock yesterday evening, and, to avoid another endless delay, cast on for sock two this morning. I very much hope the yarn will be sufficient because it's obviously not meant to be held double-stranded. To make it go further I had started using some left-over Freedom Sock yarn, but now that is running low and I'm using it double-stranded with some pink cashmere. A stylish project this is not, but this yarn is so soft, I'm sure the socks will get a lot of wear anyway, even if I run out of yarn half-way down the foot and have to finish in a different colour! :D

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A Year of Projects

I've been spinning!

No, not the exercise kind, the fleece kind! 

That's what I always have to clarify when I tell non-crafty friends about spinning. I doubt that anyone reading this blog would have any doubt as to which kind of spinning I'm referring to. :)

Yesterday a local friend who keeps a few sheep dropped round two fleeces. This morning he brought the remaining two. They are Derbyshire Gritstone, and this is only their 2nd shearing. The fleece is lovely and soft and, since he only had to shear these four, he also took care to pick out any particularly soiled parts of the fleece and discard them.

The result is a lovely fluffy, and remarkably clean fleece, so I thought I might try to spin it from the raw fleece rather than wash and process it before spinning. 

I spun a large bobbin of pretty rough and slubby thick-ish yarn this morning just to test it. It's not perfect, and it's pretty over-spun because I was still experimenting with the yarn thickness, the fact that it wasn't carded, and the tension on the wheel, plus boy #2, who is off school due to a bad cold, helped a bit, but despite all this I'm actually pretty pleased with the results.

Spinning the raw fleece was actually really fun, and it's so much quicker than having to process the whole thing beforehand! Since the yarn has far too much twist in places I'll probably ply it to balance it a bit more but I can see a lot of spinning from unprocessed fleeces in my future!