WIP Wednesday

Quite a few things on the needles this week, and I’m trying to settle into some more frequent posts other than my YOP weekly updates. Right now, I’ve got:

Aloft Shawl: I’m slowly working on this one during the hour or so I have for knitting in the evenings. I specifically chose this pattern so that I could work towards my deadline of mid-November for this one and see if I had time to complete 3, 4 or 5 of the pattern repeats. I have plenty of yarn (which is Wooly Wonka Fibers Celestial in the Milky Way colorway) so I’m going to keep working on this one until I get closer to the deadline. I currently have repeats 1 and 2 finished and I am about 25% into repeat 3. Those rows are getting longer and longer, so it will likely not look like much beyond a scrunched-up gray pile of fabric until it gets cast off.

I have a Hipster hat (pattern from Tin Can Knits) on the needles, but it should be finished tonight. This is a super simple reverse stockinette hat (although you knit it inside out so only limited purling at the crown decreases). I only had 150 yards of the Bare Naked Wools Kent DK to use for it, but in looking at other Ravelry projects, I’m 99% sure I’ll have enough to knit the largest size, and it can then go in the donation box for the shelter, where they always need men-sized things. I believe this Kent DK is going to become one of my favorite non-superwash/heritage breed neutral type yarns. It is a combination of merino and romney wools, so it has softness and some bounce while still having great stitch definition and what I suspect will be a slightly more hard-wearing surface than plain merino. Mine is in the Beach Glass colorway.

Finally, I have a new pair of socks on the go. I’ve had the October Moon pattern by Lina Knits in my queue for several years, and this is the year I finally have them cast on. I am using Explorer Knits Denali Sock in the Flock colorway for the MC, and some leftover Miss Babs Yummy 2-ply in Blackbird for the colorwork. I picked these for their great colors and contrast, but I knew when I picked them the colorwork portion would be slightly uneven. These smooth, superwash yarns don’t work as well for colorwork than the slightly fuzzier, plumper yarns like West Yorkshire Spinners 4-ply, but I wanted the color pairing of these, so here we are. I have the first sock completed down to the heel and have turned the heel, so just the foot left to go on sock #1.

I also have started spinning the singles for the next section of the Moonriver gradient spin I’ve got in progress, but no images for that yet to share.