Hello my darling dears! It's the time of year here at chez woolly where we engage in the ancient ritual I like to call "the annual airing of the WIP pile." As I have said many times before, and likely will again, there is not much that's consistent about this little blog of mine, but I am pretty good about posting on or near-bouts February 1st.
In these parts we honor the month of February by engaging in mad acts of Finishing, Frogging, or Flinging. It's a lovely and alliterative way to take stock of our current WIPs and assorted UFOs and see, as the lady says, if they still bless us. And if they do not bless us in their current form, are we better served by pushing through to completion, or by setting them on fire?
These are personal and private decisions that one can only make for one's own self.
In support of this goal, I like to take a bit of stock and list out what I have on needle or hook. It should be noted here for posterity that I've recently taken cross-stitch up again, but for the sake of all of our sanity, I won't be listing any of those projects here.
I'll be listing my projects from oldest to newest, with as much supporting information as seems interesting or relevant. To me, I mean. I don't actually expect this to be terribly interesting or relevant to any of the rest of you. It's okay, I understand.
Here we go!
NOTE: Links go to Ravelry - please click with caution if the new (is it still new at this point?) site causes you problems.
1. My oldest WIP remains Weekender Blanket, by Sandra Paul, started May 20, 2018. I'm using Lucy of Attic24's "Cottage Pack" and sort of loosely but not really using the pattern color map with my own colors subbed in. I added two full rows in 2021. On one hand at this rate I'll finish it in approximately one hundred years, and on the other hand, there was a panini, y'all should be proud I added anything at all.
Also, my goodness was the poor thing wrinkled. Someone (and I'm not naming any names) did not put it away very neatly when she was done working on it last.
2. Next up on the stage is my Scrappy Granny afghan. Friends, I started this in April of 2019, and have not touched it since that same year. It saw zero action in 2020 or 2021. I don't think I'm actually making this blanket. Now I just need to decide how to not have it any more. Goodwill? Landfill? Frog and reclaim? IDK, the point was to USE UP the scraps. Or do I actually sit down and add a row or two and see if the magic is rekindled? throws hands up in disgust and stalks off
Yes, this is the same photo I used last year. There wasn't much point in taking a new one.
Now we jump forward to 2021 WIPs. Everything I started in 2020 has been finished, so that's cool.
3. Aria Blanket, by Lucy of the aforementioned attic24. I'm crocheting this just exactly as called for, and it's pretty glorious. This was started January 9, 2021, and I'm more than half done the body. It's a 12 x 12 grid, with several rounds of border, so I'm not really half done with it yet, but it sort of feels like I should be.
4.Next up is (now brace yourself) another blanket. Started on May 9, 2021, this is the snuggle is real. It's a homebrew granny square afghan I'm making for Morgan. It will end up between full and queen size, and is using the same basic recipe as my art of creating comfort afghan (I only briefly mentioned that here in last February's post, but if you're curious that's a link to my Rav project page.) I'm using another Lucy pack - this time the coastal colorway. I dig me some Stylecraft Special DK, y'all.
There are 83 of 90 squares in this bag, and I have two more around here somewhere but let's be real, 83 squares in a bag looks an awfully lot like 85 squares in a bag, so I trust you'll forgive me. I plan to use gray to do a continuous join, and then I'll think of something clever to do for a border.
If you've ever ordered anything from Wool Warehouse, you'll recognize my fancy project bag.
5. Okay, but you see what had happened was... Look, it's not that I am only crocheting blankets anymore. It's just that I'm not finishing them at the rate that I'm starting them. In my defense (and I clearly need defending, this is getting ridiculous) I have actually finished three blankets in the last two years. I just started...uh, more.
Anyway, already fed up with my own nonsense, I named this blanket "oh for the love of pete." I'm using the Battenburg Blanket by Sandra Paul for some loose inspiration, and am mostly just making a whack of tiny squares. I started it on June 9, 2021, and haven't touched it since July. Maybe I'm actually making a nice pillow...
I don't actually have a picture of all the squares in one place, but imagine a whack of these in various shades of fingering weight wool.
6. Would you believe that this is NOT another blanket? (Don't fret, there's one more coming.) I started a plain, oversized stockinette sweatshirt of a sweater for myself on August 5, 2021. It's knit bottom up and in the round. I was cruising along and stopped to try it on after I had knit most of a sleeve and realized that it's awful. The sleeve was stupidly big and really looked bad on me. The most painful part about this is that I am not a small woman. I was knitting at a fairly fine-ish gauge (around 5.5 spi or so). That's a LOT of extra knitting I ended up doing. (Pattern? What pattern? I'm winging it...and this here is the consequence of doing so).
Anyway, I have a plan - after a nice long time out for most of December and January, I pulled it out the other day and ripped back the sleeve. Next I'm going to unpick the 3 needle bind off and shorten the armscyes. I'm considering riffing off of a boxy style and doing shorter, tighter sleeves. I need to dig out some of Joji's patterns and see if my gauge is close enough to keep the math from being too much of a PITA.
This picture doesn't do it any kind of justice - it's a pretty heathery olivish green. Right now it just looks like a sack of potatoes (sans potatoes. So just a sack, really) but I have every faith that someday it will be a comfy sweatshirt.
7. Yuletide Blanket by Lucy of attic24 (stop judging me.) Crocheting this as called for and loving every minute of it. I started it on December 5, 2021, and I'm right exactly at 50% finished (as determined by the number of DCs. No I didn't count them, I'm not a mad woman. I have a spreadsheet.) It's right around 52" across right now and I'm loving having it on my lap as I work on it.
No more blankets after this - from here on out it's just knitting.
8. as of yet unnamed, test knit for Heidi Nick, started January 1, 2022. I'm using Junkyarn Smooth Sock in the "Molly" colorway. I really enjoyed knitting this (which is good, because I have two feet and will need to do it again). I rarely knit toe-up socks or patterned socks either one these days, mostly because I use sock knitting as "no eyes needed" knitting. After this experience, I may go back to knitting patterned socks, because this is a pretty good sock, y'all.
9. zichra baruch (her memory for a blessing). I cast these on January 18, 2021. A dear friend and beloved member of my online knitting community passed away on January 17. It was not unexpected, but still genuinely heart-wrenching. As a part of her process of preparing, she threw a Hobbit Birthday party and gave gifts of stash and hand-knits to her friends. This is the sock yarn that she gave me.
10. on par with ancient talismans (clapotis). Stop laughing. This totally counts. (Cast on January 23, 2022).
So there's the list. Neither so long as some years, nor as short as others, but it will do. I clearly need to get a grip on this whole blanket issue, but yannow. It's fine. We're all fine here.
Here's the plan:
- Finish the two pair of socks.
- Finish my sweatshirt-sweater.
- Finish the squares for the snuggle is real
- Make significant progress on Yuletide (I aim to hit 75% by end of month)
- Make decisions about the two fingering weight, scrappy crochet blanket starts.
- Make enough progress on the Clapotis that you can tell it's supposed to be a Clapotis.
I've put myself in a pretty pickle with all those blankets, so the finishing might be a little sparse around these parts. It'll feel good to get that sweater done though, and I can move the blankets forward a bit.
We'll see how I go!
