I thought I’d give the whole WIP Wednesday thing a go. I’m not entirely sure where it originated, but it sounds cute. And if I don’t do a WIP post, no one will be seeing the socks that I’m working on for a long, long time!

I am currently working on the Knot Socks by Nancy Bush on 2.25mm/US1 circulars with Regia Design Line Kaffe Fassett in colour #04453 which is self-striping/self-patterning yarn.

The pattern is from Sock Knitting Master Class: Innovative Techniques & Patterns. So far it’s knitting up fantastically, I’ve finished cable pattern 4 times and need to do it just once more before I go onto the heel. It’s a cuff-down pattern and written for dpns. I’m knitting it on my new ChiagoGoo Red Lace circulars (2.25mm/US 1 – 40″) with the magic loop method (which I adore now that I have needles with great cables). I haven’t decided how I’m going to do the heel yet, I haven’t figured out how to do the heel flap and gusset with magic loop so I may end up doing an afterthought heel.

Each pattern repeat takes about 2.5-3 hours, so I estimate that I’ve spent around 11-13.5 hours on Sock #1 so far. I knit whenever I’m watching podcasts.

I currently have no other knitting projects on the needles – I’m waiting for a Blythe friend to choose yarn colours and then I’ll be knitting two cardigans with pockets for her in exchange for a very lovely dress.

For crochet projects, it’s currently a secret… I’m designing an amigurumi so it’ll be secret for a bit until I finish it and duplicate it with the notes that I’ve got. I’ve been slowly working on getting the pattern shop for Chelle-Chelle.com up and running and have been tweaking with coding for the last little bit – but I hope it get it open at the same time that the pattern is finished.

Upcoming miscellaneous things: I’ll be doing a review on the ChiaoGoo Red Lace needles (I feel that 10+ hours is a decent amount of time to try something out before reviewing it) and also a post soon about all the podcasts that I listen to regularly.

These have been a long, long, long time in the making. I completed the first sock fairly quickly but then spent forever on not doing the second sock. There’s a term for that: Second Sock Syndrome. I finished both socks back in the end of December, but just got around to posting about it now.

These socks are knit from the Basic Ribbed Socks pattern by Kate Atherley. It is a free pattern that is available on Ravelry.

I knit on 2.75mm (US 2) double pointed needles. I didn’t actually have a set of dpns in 2.75mm, but I did have several from thrift store baggies so I found 4 mismatched dpns in the right size.

I used Regia’s Design Line by Kaffe Fassett in colourway 04450. I affectionately referred to the colour as ‘clown barf’ after I had knitted enough of the first sock to see how the colours were coming along. I had bought 2 balls of the yarn (460.0yds or 420.6m per 50g) and had, as you can see from the first photo, a lot left over. I used the excess amount of yarn for knitting other things (primarily doll clothing).

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I’m almost done with 2011 projects, promise! (There’ll be two more posts about 2011 projects after this one.)

These two sweaters are made from the same McCall’s pattern packet as the hooded cardigan from yesterday’s post. This one is Sweater B.

The yarns used are primarily yarns from a Japanese store (in other words, I cannot read the labels very well). The yarn content is 80% acrylic, 20% mohair in both the blue, pink and grey. The white yarn was 70% acrylic and 30% wool. All are sock-weight yarns. They were knit on 3mm (2½ US) needles.

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I’m still trying to catch up on posting photos of finished objects. Unfortunately, because of focusing on school work, there weren’t that many that I needed to get caught up on! I finished this hooded cardigan over two days. Dolly crafting is generally good for short-term projects and good for gratification. It’s not quite instant, but it’s pretty close.

The yarn used was Patons Purple Heather in 0350. The ball band listed the date of manufacture as 26/11/1973. I got the yarn from my mom, it’s from when she used to knit. I knit it on 3mm (2½ US) needles.

The pattern is from McCall’s 7841, Hooded Cardigan E.

The entire cardigan has a seed stitch border, which I find really helps ‘connect’ the entire piece together in making it seem a lot like a human-sized cardigan.

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A while ago, I’m not even sure how long ago now, I knitted a hat. It wasn’t my first time knitting in the round, but I did this one entirely on double-pointed needles. It was my first ‘big’ circular knitting project that I did, besides little testing swatches to get used to it. I used all worsted weight yarn, all Lion Brand Wool-Ease (80% acrylic, 20% wool).

I used an acrylic blend because the hat was a gift and if I’m not entirely sure about someone’s laundry habits, I tend to gift acrylic or acrylic blends. It’s not because I’m selfish when it comes to the “good yarn” (well, maybe I am), but because it’s just good practice. I don’t want to make something for someone and then have them toss it into the wash and have it come out several sizes too small. That wouldn’t do me or the gift recipient any good if the hat was easily ruined, now would it?

I used a basic toque pattern and did it entirely in the base colour first. Goomba’s face was duplicate stitched on afterwards. I tried to make the inside as neat as possible, but not sure if I managed that at all. It was a pretty decent knit, the thing that I really needed to get into the habit was shuffling stitches on the dpns, I was not used to that at all.

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