Lately, I've been attempting to knit one thing at a time. That attempt of course is failing because I keep getting distracted by yarn that I find and new patterns (cough - KnitPicks IDP program - cough).
That being said, however, I think I'm doing pretty good. Even though my Ravelry projects page says that I have 17 WIPs, don't believe it (okay, believe it). Some of them just really need to be sent to the "hibernating" phase but I just never get around to it. Some of them are ongoing projects (such as the diagonal dishcloths, I don't want to create a new project for all of them, but I want to track what yarn I'm using up). So of the 17, I'd say I'm actually actively working on about 7. Or maybe 8. Let's go with 8. :)
So, what's "actively being worked on?"
My crochet project is slowly being worked on. Really slowly. A little too slowly.
My April Lady Sweater- um...not really actively being worked on. It's hot here and the last thing I want is a wool sweater anywhere near me. So never mind...
At the beginning of June when I was organizing pretending to organize my craft room, I found the Bernat Bamboo yarn I've had for, oh, a couple years now. So I cast on for a quick garter stitch scarf with big needles. Still not done. About 1/3 done though since I finished the first of 3 skeins. :)
Chocolate Raspberry Clapotis...Um...yeah. So, after I posted about it in June, I worked on it some more, and was happily knitting and purling along when I discovered I'd missed an increase somewhere. So it involved much ripping. It was 100% salvageable, but I just kinda lost interest after that! So I've only knitted it once or twice since then...
The Booga Bag Cheap Knock-Off is just waiting to be felted. I more or less finished it right before my friend came to visit at the end of June and it has since sat forgotten. But part of that was also because of the fact that our laundry room is in the basement, which was pretty unusable thanks to flooding for about 2.5 weeks (it has just now finished drying out).
However, I do have 3 projects going that I am rotating in and out and working on regularly! Hooray!
The first one is my long-anticipated feather & fan afghan. I fully intend on this taking a long time, for two reasons- 1. because hello, it's an afghan. It's going to take a while and 2. i am using *whispers* red heart supersaver. Eeeeee, the horrors. In all seriousness, this is really brutal. Like, holy crap, I'm turning into a yarn snob, I used to use that on a regular basis?? That being said- I am absolutely loving the colors. And I have confidence it will soften up once finished and washed (in hair conditioner! or lots of fabric softener! or both!). But in the meantime, slow going. I am using size 10 needles anyway, and it seems like larger needles are more tough on my hands as well. So if this gets finished by next summer, I'll be fine.
I'm not following any specific pattern for this- the pattern repeats are 18 stitches, and I am doing a border of 10 stitches on each side. I cast on 200 stitches for this, 10 pattern repeats + 20 stitches for the border. I'm using the colors Coffee (dark brown), Magenta, and Cherry Chip (mix of coffee, magenta and a light brown). Great colors- nice and cheery!
My next project is a miniature market bag, loosely based on the Fantasy Naturale Bag. I am using up seme America's Best Cotton Cabled in Raspberry Swirls that has been sitting in my stash forever and since I foolishly only ordered 2 balls, I wasn't sure what to do with it.
Obviously since it's a miniature market bag, I did a lot of mods, to the point of having to frog the entire thing because it turned out poorly. First mistake: casting on 40 stitches for the base with a size 5 needle, and then trying to pick up the mesh stitches with a size 7. Let's just say the finished product ended up very wide and very short and very much out of yarn. So I frogged it, rewound it, and set it aside. I ended up going back to it a few days later, cast on 22 stitches with a size 5 needle again, and picked up stitches around the base (in multiples of 4) for the mesh. I am not sure exactly how many stitches I picked up because I had to do some adjustments. This time I decided to use a size 8 instead of 7 to see how it worked out, since the size 7 seemed to be a bit unforgiving. Size 8 is working nicely. I am about halfway done with the mesh and I think I'm going to do i-cord for the handles, but I'm not sure how I am going to do that yet.
Finally- I found the pattern for the Morning Frost Wrap (Rav link) in the new Stitch Nation Collection 1 and thought it would be a perfect wrap to make- good for fall and spring when it's not quite jacket weather but not quite short-sleeve weather, and also doubling as a scarf in the winter! As luck would have it, when I found this pattern, Joanns had the Bamboo Ewe on sale for $2.99 a skein. Perfect. I am about 1/3 done with the wrap. Since it has scalloped edges, it's going to need to be knitted in two halves and then grafted together, rather than knitted in one piece. I think it would be silly looking to have one scalloped edge and one not, plus it'll be an exercise in grafting! I really like this yarn, it is silky smooth and very soft against the skin. Pretty much everyone on Ravelry seems to say that it grows a ton after blocking, so that is helpful info. I may adjust how big I make each half then, but we'll see how much yarn I have left. I bought 3 skeins of the Twilight since the pattern called for 3 skeins.
Well, that's about all for now. I had some money in my PayPal account that I got from destashing, so I picked up some delicious Malabrigo which I cannot wait to knit with...or possibly just pet and drool over for a while...
Hopefully August brings more posts than July did! :)
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