Messy WIPs
The following post may contain some images too graphic for fiber lovers in the audience. View with caution cause it’s a mess.
That pretty much describes my making lately. I’m just stuffing a couple of projects in my backpack and fitting them in where I can, allowing for five minutes of untangling before I can actually work on them. But, progress is progress and I’m starved for signs of that these days.
Along with my Reindeer cardigan, I’ve just started my Ze Continental’s Confetti and Champagna socks. They’re Susan B. Anderson’s Smooth Operator socks knit in Gynx’s Confetti and Champagne colorway, which makes me think of The Continental. It’s my first afterthought heel but I’m hearing lots of good stuff about this version of that kind of heel. And little can be as satisfying as knitting pretty stripes two-at-a-time. It’s also my first time to correctly cost on for two socks at once. I usually just cast them on separately and slide one onto the same needle as the other. All it took was a two second google search, but I always put it off for some reason.
Oh and then there’s one more little mess I have to finish. My Hualpa Kimono did block out to the pattern measurements… after I did a Stretch Armstrong on it and pinned it in place. Please don’t judge me for the next photo:
(more knits, less mess on ravelry, kollabora, instagram, and flickr)
You may not be able to see how stretched and mishapen it was as I blocked it, but believe me it was. And I worried the pinned areas would make weird little points. Then, when they didn’t seem to be holding, I just started stacking random kitchen items on top of it. I promise it loos better now that it’s dry but, sheesh, that felt wrong.
Apparently I wasn’t the only knitter to have trouble blocking it out. Several knitters on Ravelry added a pattern repeat to give it the proper length. Length seemed to be the biggest blocking challenge for me, too. The Fair Isle just doesn’t want to give as much as a single strand swatch did.
In case you were worried, no knitwear was harmed in the blocking of this garment. Also, my giant kitten was removed very gently exactly 20 times before I put her in “her bedroom” for the night.
I’ve also seen this as a personal intervention and have put blocking mats and Knitter’s Pride Knit Blockers into my Amazon wishlist for Christmas. Hopefully, my husband will take a look at it… and maybe the Vinyl versions of Pink Floyd’s Atom Heart Mother, Belle and Sebastian, and New Order’s Power, Corruption, and Lies… before Christmas.
Hualpa is just waiting on fringe and then I’ll have my third finished summer top, if you count the Morning Mist that sat in my basket for a year before I knit the bottom band.
So, victory over cotton Fair Isle and victory over casting on two-at-a-time socks. This is progress.
