Progress!

Hello, hello again! You’ll be happy to know that some projects have finally made their way from limbo into the real world (and then into my “war chest” for next year).

First up, lot 365 – Cap or hat, texture:

The pattern is Ilkley Moor, by Ann Kingstone. I knit it from Malabrigo Sock, in Cote d’Azure. I was worried that the color would be too dark to show the pattern, but thankfully that didn’t turn out to be a problem. I selected the pattern as it ticked several boxes – lightweight yarn, multiple, complex cables, and honestly, a stunning finished project. Super fun to knit too.

Texture was the name of the game over the last several weeks, as the next project is for Lot 358 – Mittens, texture:

These were another fun pattern – Gallus, by Kristin Kapur. These were also knit from Malabrigo Sock (I might have a problem), in Botticelli Red. They’re definitely a nicer color in person, more of a garnet red than what you see in the above picture.

That’s all for now! Next time I’ll show you a finished Lot 377, or maybe my progress on Lots 359, 369, or 378.

Hand in Hand – Lots 357-359

It’s time for one of my favorite categories – mittens!

It’s also the first time I get to show you something in progress for the fair, a 100% knit between the end of the 2015 fair and the start of the 2016 fair item. Actually, at this rate, it’s going to be a “100% knit in the first week of October” item. I may have gotten a little obsessed with these mittens.

These are the Gallus mittens, a pattern by Kirsten Kapur. I’m knitting them from Malabrigo Sock, one of my favorite fingering weight yarns…just not for socks. The yarn is a little thin and there is zero nylon content to slow wear and tear. However, it comes in beautiful colors for mittens and hats, and is relatively cheap. The color for these is Botticelli Red. As noted by others on Ravelry, this pattern produces a fairly long skinny mitten. That’s fine by me, I have long skinny hands. Others may wish to remove a few rows from the hand chart and/or add a few purl stitches to the side to widen these.

These mittens will be my entry for Lot 358 – Mittens, texture. There are two other lots just for mittens, 357 and 359, for Mittens, plain and Mittens, color pattern.

“Color pattern” (specifically defined by the fair as “two or more colors per row”) I understand. I have eleven pairs of stranded mittens under my belt, I got this. There are nine patterns in my queue that I’m considering. Well, make that eight, one of them includes an unmentionable word as part of the pattern. I’m leaning towards one that uses four different colors of yarn that I hope to start this December.

However. “Plain” continues to elude me. As defined by the fair, plain knitting includes “stocking stitch, reverse stocking stitch or overall garter stitch trimmed with ribbing or garter stitch. May include color stripes.” Hmm…I can easily think of patterns and designs that would fulfill these criteria, but how to make them state fair worthy? As I mentioned a few posts ago, I was unable to track down pictures of the winners in any of the plain categories this year.

After carefully combing Ravelry, I DID manage to find one winner from a couple of years ago – a pair of simply striped mittens with deceptively difficult thumbs. It’s a starting place at least.

Next time there might be a few more categories than usual – I haven’t really nailed down scarves, you see…

Knitting Spree

I kind of lost my mind last night. It was somewhere around the 30th time I had passed the marker indicating the edge of the sweater without so much as a decrease or a color change.

I went and cast on two new projects, along with digging up all of the WIPs.

Oh dear.

From left to right, top to bottom: The Noro Striped Scarf some people might remember from my post back in December, a slouchy hat using Rowan Lima,* the wolf mitten from the same post as the scarf, half a sock foot, most of a striped shawl, the beginnings of a doll, and, of course, The Sweater. Which is up to 19 hours and 15 minutes, by the way.

I’m hoping to turn all of these into a parade of finished objects by June, as mad as that sounds.

 

*This kind of kicked off the spree – started the hat, noticed it was the same color as the sweater, went yarn hunting, found a couple of WIPs and the doll yarn.