I spent a little time yesterday getting my active knitting projects in order. Yes, projects. I currently have four active projects, although only 3 of them are on the needles at this moment.
In some ways this seems strange, and perhaps a little stressful, as I am entering a couple of very busy months and I feel like I am behind on absolutely everything. On the other hand, the four projects are on four very different needle sizes, and none of them are particularly complex patterns, so I have four options for daily stress relief, depending on my state of mind and the flexibility of my hands at any given moment.
Why don't we take a look at what is going on?
First up, a pair of socks. I started these immediately after finishing the Shawlography shawl and are being knit with the leftover yarn from that project. I had a rough plan for striping and how to use the yarn in my head and I made great progress in the beginning, finishing the leg, and knitting the heel, only to loose interest and motivation. Ultimately I admitted that I did not like my initial striping pattern and I decided to rip out the sock and begin again, ripping to the point just past the last dark purple stripe you see in the above photo.
I like the new striping sequence better, and I am ready to knit the short-row heel, but the last few evenings I have been quite tired. Other projects have taken precedence.
I have also started a summer cardigan. This project is being knit using two strands of a sport weight tweedy yarn from Lana Grossa, About Berlin Spotty, and a strand of the thread-weight Diamante. I am knitting using size 10 needles and am getting a light fabric that is coming in at just under 4 stitches per inch. The pattern and the yarn are both from L'Atelier in Redondo Beach, California.
I am not far on this yet, only about 5 inches into the back, but you can see the fabric and the pattern above.
The other two projects are long-term projects that I do not think I will finish before the end of the year.
First up is the Alpaca blanket, on which I have made no progress since I last posted about it in February. This is the same photo I posted at that time. I probably will not pick it up until I finish at least one of the above two garment projects, and it may wait until late May or June, when life will hopefully be a little less hectic. Each time I pick it up I intend to finish another modular block, and as the blanket is already 3' x 3' those squares will increase in size, and require an ever larger investment in time. Leaving this on the needles for long periods is not an option however, so it will serve more as a transitional project between other pieces.
I also became intrigued by the idea of a temperature blanket and so I began yet another blanket project. Blankets remain on my mind. This one was inspired by posts over at Modern Daily Knitting, and following their lead I am knitting my blanket in Rowan's Felted Tweed using Kaffe Fassett's Garter Stripe Shawl Pattern, using one garter stripe for the high temperature for each day of the year in 2022.
Please note that I did not start knitting this until March 1, and although I was eagerly knitting it for almost a week, I then put it aside until a day or two ago. I started off behind and I am still behind. What you see in the photo is only the first half of January. I do think I will be mostly caught up by sometime in May, at. which point I may be able to progress by knitting one ridge per day, with the exception of post-travel catch up here and there. Blanket projects are basically too big to be traveling projects.
Truthfully I dithered with the blanket idea and it took me until the end of February to figure out my plan and acquire the Felted Tweed. I am not worried about the yarn acquisition. I have fallen in love with this yarn and have several projects I want to knit with it, especially some color work projects for the house. One of my goals for this year was to accumulate a small collection of Felted Tweed consisting of at least single balls in every color, which I could add to as new colors became available. In the end I will probably do something similar with a fingering weight yarn as well -- creating my own palettes, always available when the urge to play strikes.
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