I feel like I should start off with an apology because, wow, it’s been a minute. This whole summer has been lazy. I did post once last month, but otherwise I just haven’t been really inspired to write since I got the rest of my yarn back. Like I said last time, it’s a little overwhelming.
Yes, I am getting through projects, but yes, I am also casting more things on. I had a real “yikes” moment the other day when I really wanted to cast on the Assookinakii cowl pattern, which is published by Candice English of Sister’s United/The Farmer’s Daughter. (This means that the proceeds from the pattern sale benefit an awesome cause! Check them out.) I just got a shipment of bare wool in, and the box included a package of Suri alpaca skeins. A big trend right now (see The Snuggle is Real as well) is for designers to create a cowl pattern lined with Suri alpaca, which is ULTRA soft. I was more than ready to hop on this train, but there was one problem…
…I just had too many damn WIPS.
Usually, when this happens, I throw caution to the wind and cast on anyway. This time, I thought, I couldn’t just do that. Even though I have the PERFECT skein of Spincycle Dyed in the Wool (pictured below) and a nice stash of new Suri alpaca skeins (see above) and a sock yarn stash taller my house to choose the MC from, I searched way deep down into my soul to find the one shred of discipline I had left and didn’t cast on.
I told myself I could do it if and only if I finished all of my other accessory projects first. That way, my conscience would be slightly clearer. I did finish a pair of mittens last week, so I figured it couldn’t be too hard to forge ahead with the remainder of the small pile.
My accessory pile (I don’t count socks, more on my plan for those singletons below) consisted of two pairs of mittens that just needed thumbs and a hat that so far consisted of a 1” brim. Two tiny projects (four, if you count all the thumbs, and I really hate those) and one medium-sized one. How bad could it be?
I started with these red Anatolian Mittens (you can find the pattern in Folk Mittens, available at tons of used bookstores online!) and felt so good about finishing them that I immediately turned to the hat.
In February, way back before quarantine even happened, two of my roommates and I became quickly obsessed with the Snøfrost hat by The Petite Knitter. In the spirit of a KAL, I cast one on, too, in some Brown Sheep Prairie Spun DK (Lost Lake and Half and Half are the colorway names) that I had lying around from a finished sweater. I really like this yarn. It has good stitch definition. You have to be careful, because the ply is pretty loose and it’s easy to miss a loop, but it’s soft and economical. I call it a win. But, of course, since I had fifteen other WIPs, I only got an inch into the brim.
In quarantine, I didn’t have this project with me, but wanted to knit a Snøfrost along with said roommates, so I did one up in some Wool of the Andes sport yarn (I have a massive stash of this that usually gets used to make mittens, but this seemed like a solid project too). It’s lovely, and I’m sure it would’ve been nice to make again, but I decided to stick to a simple Cartography by Tin Can Knits. I love this pattern. Sometimes I swap out the motifs for other ones, but it’s such a good stashbuster because you can knit the bands in different colors of scrap yarn! (One of my roommates did this and it looks excellent! see below.) Plus, it’s not difficult, and I did the whole colorwork portion in the span of an afternoon.
One left: another pair of dreaded thumbs. This pair of mittens was designed by me using charts from Selbu Mittens. I’m in love with this book.
While I worked on these projects, I watched a new to me (and to the world) yarny YouTube podcast by the two awesome ladies who own the Little Red Mitten in Ontario. Their first video (see below) is their WIP parade. They got out all of their WIPs, even those super deep projects they hadn’t worked on in ages and showed them. They were really funny about it, but it definitely inspired me to keep finishing WIPs. I’ve been having a hard time figuring out what to write about these days, so I think I’ve finally figured it out: I’ll use this blog to share details of my FOs (and perhaps struggles of getting to the FO point). That way, I’m motivated to finish maybe a project or so each week.
Speaking of finishing projects, I still have three lone socks. One of them is brand new and I knit it in the space of about eighteen hours last week (on the left), but the other two are from Laine’s 52 Weeks of Socks and have been languishing for a few months. Luckily, over at The Woolly Thistle they will be hosting a sock sprint for the second half of August – I was excited to make a new pair, but now I’m just excited to try and finish three socks so I have three new pairs! Hold me to it. If I get a lot done in the next week and completely sign my life over to socks for the sprint, I might even knit another pair…who knows. I can’t believe how quickly I became a sock knitter! They do bring a lot of joy.
Anyway, those are my recent FOs. I’ll be back with more. I’m pretty close on a few things. But now, I’ve been bitten so hard by this “FINISH IT!!!” bug that I don’t even want to cast on my Assookinakii cowl…maybe she’ll have to wait until the fall. It’s not cold enough to wear anything like that yet, anyway.
Barnaby Knits 