Works in Progress: February 3, 2021

Supplies CollectING, Progress, and Some Yarney commentary

Over the last year, I’ve really taken advantage of having a home office/ craft room and invested in craft supplies so I can explore all the things that interest me (if I can’t travel, go to sheep and wool or fiber festivals, etc, then I’m going to take some time to really explore crafting at home!). And for the most part this has worked really well – I’m really happy to have been able to dedicate some time to exploring the things that interest me.

It’s mostly yarn – knitting is my main activity and my passion. But I’ve also bought a lot of sewing supplies, cross stitch and embroidery materials, and a Cricut Explore Air (and a possibly excessive quantity of vinyl and other cricut materials). At this point, I am pretty much at capacity in my craft space and have a queue of projects that I’m both really excited about and starting to get slightly overwhelmed by. It was almost like collecting the craft supplies was becoming it’s own hobby – and I really want to focus my time on making.

So I’m going to go on a bit of a stash diet; use the gorgeous yarns, fabrics, and other materials I’ve collected; and work on my project queue. I’m going to try for the month of February (this may extend through March, we’ll see how this goes) to work through my supplies. My goal is to use my supplies and record my progress. My second goal is to only buy things that I need to finish a project that I have the majority of supplies for (ex: buttons for a sweater). This should be the first of at least four posts (I’m going to aim to post every Wednesday) sharing my works in progress.

Jumping right in with the first project for today: I have a last fingerless mitt on my needles! I’m working on making my mom two pairs of Knucks out of this gorgeous Neighborhood Fiber Co. yarn. She requested two new pairs, which will partially replace a pair the dog unfortunately chose to eat one of. I love the dog, but this was a jerk move. Project details:

• Pattern: Knitty Knucks (free at knitty.com)
  • Size: Women’s (7 in. circumference)
• Yarn: Neighborhood Fiber Co. Rustic Fingering in the 1600 Penn Colorway (1600 Penn isn’t available right now but they have a ton of gorgeous colors. Full disclosure, while I’m in no way affiliated with Neighborhood Fiber, they’re near and dear to my heart as they’re based in my hometown of Baltimore and rustic fingering is my favorite yarn so I will always try to send other fiber crafters to them.)
  • 100% merino wool, fingering weight, 475 yds/ 114 g. per skein
• Notes: I highly recommend this pattern if you’re looking for a light fingerless gloves pattern. I wear these almost all winter, except when shoveling snow and have so many pairs now. This pattern is easy to follow and works up really quickly. My advice: Do follow the designer’s advice and make a note of how many rounds you work for each part of the first glove so you can replicate the second exactly (and so you can re-do the pattern once you realize you’re going to want three pairs of these!). This is also perfect pattern for having a little bit of fun with too. The pattern has two options for the cuff, but you could also take the stitch count (or add/remove a couple of stitches to hit a desired number) and really have fun designing your own decorative cuffs.

This socks pictured above are my 2020-2021 Late Christmas Gift (which I really should trademark, I have one every year).

• Pattern: My basic sock pattern (unwritten, although drafted at least three times)
  • Size: Fits a human wearing a size 7-8 shoe.
• Yarn: Paton’s Kroy in Celestial Colors (I bought this at my local Joann Fabrics, but it’s a pretty widely available yarn in the US)
  • 75% wool/25% nylon, fingering weight, 166 yards/50 g per skein (~3 skeins)
• Notes: This yarn is really a hard wearing, long lasting sock yarn. This is the third pair of socks I’ve knit with it and I keep returning to it because these socks can really take a heavy use and machine washing. The colors are also great and stay true after washing/wearing a number of times. The only downside is if you use it for a whole mid-calf length sock, you will likely need slightly more than one skein per sock.

Last up for this week is a new pattern I’m working on. This isn’t a secret and is going to be independently published so I can share progress images. I’ll probably also post about this on instagram too over the next few days so if you follow me there, you’ll get to see some sneak peaks of the pattern.

• Pattern: Name TBD
  • Size: This is the smallest of what will be three adult sizes.
• Yarn: Lion Brand Touch of Alpaca in the Dusty Blue colorway
  • 90% acrylic/10% alpaca, worsted weight, 207 yds/100g
• Notes: I’ve had this idea for a fairly simple all-over cable pattern charted months and it’s finally on the needles. I really like the way it’s working up in this yarn. I knit the medium size in a 100% wool yarn over the weekend and am pretty pleased with my first take of the crown decreases, which is always exciting. My hope is this is a fairly forgiving pattern that can be knit with a variety of different fibers and fiber-blends to create a beautiful, well-fitting hat. My ambitious target is to release this in mid-February. As with all things, we’ll see how well that timeline works…!

What’s really exciting is that after I wrote these brief project notes, I realized I’m actually almost done with all of these projects. I have been feeling moderately overwhelmed by everything I want to do and this has been a useful moment of reflection. If you’re working on something great, let me know in the comments here or over on instagram. I hope you take time to craft this week.

Happy Knitting,

Kara