Seventh Year of Projects - Week 13

Another week of progress to report although it was a busy week at school and I did not get time to craft as much as I would have liked (it looks like a lot but the crochet squares go fairy quickly!!)

I kept at it with my Temperature Scarf and am now all caught up!  This past week's progress is from the two orange markers forward.

And I kept working on my BAMCAL squares.  My original plan was to do all the squares in blues, white, and black combinations, but I am running low on most of the blues I had in stash.  So now the plan is to use the squares made in the first six months to make one afghan all in the original color scheme and for the remaining six months of the year I will use all sorts of random colors I have in my stash to make a second afghan.  July is already done in the original colors, but the rest will be mixed now with whatever I have in my stash.

Here is what I finished this past week:

My August Main 12 inch BAMCAL square:

My August Alternate 12 inch BAMCAL square:

My four August 6 inch BAMCAL squares:

My September Main 12 inch BAMCAL square (I think the brown is too dark here...):

My September Alternate 12 inch BAMCAL square:

My September 6 inch BAMCAL square was just not coming out right.  In order to keep it close to 6 inches I needed to go down to a 4mm hook - with worsted weight yarn it was killing my hands and was still coming out too large...  So I gave up on that idea and went up to my usual 5mm hook and I will turn this into another 12 inch square.  I am part way through it now and am much happier with the process and I think it will look great as a larger square!  Here is where I am at now (it will be complete later this morning).

Once I have this last September square complete I can cast on my Selbu mittens (the first design in a Selbu Mitten Club!!  We shall see how much I get done on that by next Sunday!  I'm not sure which color combination I will use for the first pair, but my choices are here:

My page of current projects for this YOP can be found here.

To read other blogs taking part in YOP - Year 7 (or to join up yourself - it is never too late!) check out the Ravelry group over here.

Seventh Year of Projects - Week 12

I have spent the past week playing catch-up and trying my darnedest not to cast on anything new (aside from the monthly squares that I was behind on!).  I think I accomplished a lot!!

This week I managed to finish my September Main BAMKAL square:

and my July Main 12 inch BAMCAL square:

and my July Alternate 12 inch square:

and my four July 6 inch squares:

I also spent some time pinning out and steam blocking (since I used an acrylic yarn I had in my stash for this afghan) ALL of my BAMKAL squares.  I also need to take decent pictures of them all and get that updated on my Ravelry project pages.  I plan to do that later today.  I bought some cream colored yarn that I plan to use as a border on each square - I will crochet these borders on and then I can start sewing them all together.  Now that they are blocked I can see that there are a few that are a bit small - the border will work nicely to even out the sizing!

First dozen pinned out - until I ran out of pins!

And the rest of them!

And last but not least I am getting closer to being caught up with my Temperature Scarf.  I made it to the end of September 3rd.  This past week's progress is from the two plastic orange stitch markers on each side!  The first single metal marker shows when July ended and the second single metal marker shows where August ended.  I should be completely caught up for next week's update!

Before next week I want to be caught up on all my BAMCAL squares and my Temperature scarf so that I can justify casting on a pair of Selbu mittens from the club I signed up for last month (I am behind there too - there is the original pattern plus the September pattern to knit before the October and November patterns are released!)  Hopefully I can cast on a pair of those next week!!  YAY!!

My page of current projects for this YOP can be found here.

To read other blogs taking part in YOP - Year 7 (or to join up yourself - it is never too late!) check out the Ravelry group over here.

Seventh Year of Projects - Week 11

Another weekly update here!  My Tour-de-Sock Stage 6 socks have kicked my tail and done me in!  These have been the most difficult, challenging socks I have (tried to) knit!  They involved stranded knitting with three colors together (and four once you get to the heel flap - I didn't get that far...)!  And use the Jacquard laddering method to catch the floats.  I enjoyed learning the Jacquard method, but the three colors really slowed me down!  I have resigned myself to the fact that I will not finish these socks!  I got the cuff completed and got part way through the first charts beyond the cuff (but did not take a picture).  I am afraid that these have been frogged.  I may revisit them at a later time - we shall see, but for now they are frogged and gone.  Here is what the cuff looked like:

I had made myself a personal challenge to complete all six stages during the allotted time, and even though I failed at that I can say this year is my personal best in all of the Tours I have participated in.  I finished four pair during the allotted time frame and finished the fifth pair within a few days of the cut off for that stage.  I am happy to have five new pretty pair of socks!!  And I learned several new knitting techniques.  Who knows - maybe next year I will complete all six pair!  If not, at least I plan to try again!!  Here are my five completed Tour-de-Sock socks!

So since I threw in the towel on Thursday afternoon (the pattern was released on Sunday morning - yeah - four and a half days of knitting (not all day each day, but many hours) and all I had to show was a cuff and a little bit more - seriously like eight rounds more) I "had" to work on something else!  So I picked up some other knitting to fill the time!  I worked on my September BAMKAL alternate square and got that one finished.

Then I cast on the September BAMKAL Main square and made some progress.

I also spent some time working on my Temperature Scarf (which has been neglected for some time).  I last did my two rows on June 29th...  Now I am up to ...  I plan to work on this for a bit more and hope to get completely caught up again!  This is why I did not choose to make a temperature blanket!!  Two rounds in a scarf a day is a doable catch up but I would never have kept up with a blanket!!  My recent progress is from the two orange markers:

Seventh Year of Projects - Week 10

Back again for another weekly update!  I have not much to show this week other than my Tour-de-Sock Stage 5 completed socks!  These were a fun knit and I love the final product.  Here they are:

The second picture shows the beads and cables quite nicely.  The second sock has the bead color placement reversed.

Tour-de-Sock Stage 6 - the final stage in the challenge - was released earlier this morning.  It called for four colors - so I set to work dying yarn to use in hopes that it would work well.  I decided on a yellow and purple to dye (the two main colors).  For the smaller contrast colors I am using leftovers of the blue I dyed for Stage 4 and some bare.  I'll be casting these on later this morning!  The socks look amazing, but I am not sure if I will finish in time - these beauties involve stranding with three colors in a row...  I suspect that might slow me down a bit!  Here is a picture of my colors - purple and yellow are my main color and contrast color with blue and bare being my two highlight colors.

Then, once these socks are complete I will knit something NOT socks!  I may switch to crochet and work on catching up on my BAMCAL squares, but time will tell.  I suspect I will have nothing to update next week except my Stage 6 socks, but we shall see!  Until next week!