Seventh Year of Projects - Week 6

Another week with some nice progress made!!

First up - I finished my Tour-de-Sock Stage 2 socks in time!  The heel is loose on my foot, but I am very happy with the colourwork.  It is nice and even!!  This was not my first colourwork project and apparently practice helps (who would have thought?).  Here is the finished pair:

Then I got back to working on my Block a Month Knit project.  Each month a main and alternate square pattern are posted and by the end of the year you have an afghan.  I did not get around to making my July squares while it was still July, but at least I made some progress in early August!  I also hope to finish the August squares while it is still August.  Keep posted to see if I actually did manage that!

I finished the main July square and made some progress on the alternate July square as well.  Here is what I got done:

And then the Stage 3 sock pattern was released late Friday afternoon - so I had to cast on!!  I love the design!!  It is cables and lace.  I am using some of my own hand dyed yarn (again) and am enjoying the knit so far!  Here is my progress:

Until next week!!  I hope to have another finished pair of socks plus three knit squares - tune in next week to see if that is what I managed to accomplish!

Seventh Year of Projects - Week 5

Another week and more knitting!  I have had a productive week of knitting!  I finished my Stage 1 Socks in time!  I used some of my own hand dyed yarn and I enjoyed this pattern.  It however does not fit my foot very well so I suspect I will be giving it away to someone.  That is one disadvantage of these sock knitting competitions - sometimes the sock does not fit.  The rules are set so that everyone has to knit a specific way to keep it fair to everyone in the contest.  As soon as one accepts that they might be making socks for their gift basket, all is good!

I still did not find my sock blockers so I made myself a new set.  I follow an easy DIY tutorial to make them out of plastic place mats and they are super easy and make really nice sock blockers!!
Here are my new sock blockers:

And here are my Stage 1 socks:

I also cast on the Stage 2 Socks.  I am enjoying this knit!  Again it is a test of knitting skills and an opportunity to learn and practice new techniques!  This design includes colourwork and has us do a Latvian braid (this was a challenge to me!!  I have done these braids before but always have to watch several videos before I manage to get them done again!).  I have made some serious progress with these and I should be able to have them complete by the deadline of Friday.  I am again using my own hand dyed yarn for this one.  Here is a progress picture:

Seventh Year of Projects - Week 4

And here we are back for the fourth week in a row!!  Let's see how long I can keep up!!

This past week I only worked on my Tour-de-Sock Stage 1 Socks. This is a nice pattern and has some interesting twists to it!  The heel was one I have never done before so that was fun!  It is toe-up which is not my preferred method - actually it is fine - I just have less practice with toe-up designs.  Sock number one has the leg complete and is ready for the cuff; sock number two has two and a half repeats left to do on the leg and the cuff.  I like to knit my socks two at a time in tandem - one toe, second toe, first foot, second foot, ...  Here is where I am after nearly a week of knitting on these:

I need to locate my sock blockers for some better pictures once these are complete!!

My other projects have taken a back seat this past week.  I have not done anything else craft-wise at all!

Stage 2 begins on Tuesday afternoon so I want to have my Stage 1 socks complete and hope to get some progress made on the second pair!  Tune in next week and see what I worked on!

Seventh Year of Projects - Week 3

Back again!  I am back home from the conference and have a progress report.

I made some excellent progress on John's Socks - that 6+ hour train ride allows for some serious knitting time!  My knitting from the orange to the green marker is what I did after last Sunday until I got home from the conference and from the green marker onward was from the last few days after I got home.  I am happy with my progress on these!!

And once I got back home I picked up my Find Your Fade Shawl and managed to make some progress with that as well!  I have finished with the second color and have melted in the third color.  Maybe you will see color number four next week - stay tuned and see!!  The rows are getting longer every two rows so the going seems to be slowing down now.  At the end of color number four the row lengths stabilize and there is no more increasing without a cancelling decrease.  Here is what my Fade looks like now:

Saturday morning marked the beginning of Tour-de-Sock - I have been participating in this challenge for several years now (I think this is year four or five for me now!).  I had actually forgot it was beginning on Saturday morning and did not take yarn with me when I went out of town for the weekend (worked on John's socks instead) so I plan to cast those on this evening.  Each round lasts ten days and I am going to try to complete all six rounds on schedule (even though my Stage 1 will only have 8 days...)  Check back with me in another week and see what I got done!  I am suspecting I will spend time on my Fade and the Stage 1 socks - we shall see!  I am using some of my own hand dyed for this round of the contest:

Seventh Year of Projects - Week 2

I'm back again with my second post!  I spent most of the first half of the week working on my Find Your Fade and made some serious progress!  I am finished the first color and have six rows to go on the second color before I am ready to add in the third color.  We shall see how much I get done once I get back to it later this upcoming week!!  That little splash of blue is where I left off from my last update.

I was also traveling to a conference and took John's Vanilla Socks as I wanted something nice and mindless for my many hours of train travel.  I managed to get quite a lot done!  I am working on the gusset decreases on the first sock!  The marker shows where I was when I left home on Thursday morning!  I will be able to get more done on this one over the next couple evenings and on the way home on Wednesday!

This post is short and sweet!  I'll (hopefully) have more to report on next week after I am back home!

Seventh Year of Projects - Week 1

I have decided to join the Seventh Year of Projects blogging adventure!  I joined up in the very First Year and managed to get a few projects done.  I again joined the Third Year and suspect I accomplished even less.  And I joined up for the Fourth Year, Fifth Year, and Sixth Year too and was not so successful.  Now I am joining up for Year 7 and we shall see how I do!  I am convinced that I overestimated my ability to finish up all the projects I chose!  My projects are mostly knit and my plan is to use only stash to see how much I can use over the next year!  I am going to try for completing 12 projects - one a month!  

Ongoing works in progress:
1) Find Your Fade - using hand dyed by me yarn - cast on July 1st 2017 and I have section one complete.  I plan to work on this one a fair bit over the next couple days - I am eager to get onto my second color!!  The first picture shows the colors I will be using - beginning with the lighter pink on the bottom.  I cast on yesterday and have completed Section 1.  Lots to go yet!!  I hope to work on this one some over the next several days.  I am excited to fade into the second color!!  Maybe I'll get to that later tonight! 

Find My Fade colors!

Find My Fade progress

2) John's Vanilla Socks (no pattern) - cast on June 26th 2017.  I have to travel for a conference later this week - 6-8 hours of train time each way - hope to make some serious progress on this pair!

3) Temperature Scarf - began January 1st and will finish around December 31.  I have finished this up to the end of June 29th.   I should try to catch up again!  Plus I should get to tucking in the tails (about two weeks worth)

4) Cocoa Coffee - cast on May 29th 2016!  I had this on my YOP list last year and have made virtually no progress since then!  Might be time to frog this!!

5) Lambs and Chickens and Bunnies, Oh My! - cast on April 23rd 2017 One sock complete and the second needs making!

6) Sock Scrap-ghan - cast on July 24th 2014 It is time to keep moving with this one!!  I currently have 95 squares complete!  I have not worked on this much in many months now!!

7) BAMCAL squares - Monthly crochet squares that will turn into one or two afghans by the end of 2017. Complete to the end of June.
8) BAMKAL squares - Monthly knit squares that will turn into one or two afghans by the end of 2017. Complete to the end of June.

New plans for using stash include (and if time permits I hope to add more to this list):
1) Summer Shawlette - use Berroco Comfort Solids and Heathers
2) Elva Shawl - use Manos del Uruguay  (need to buy the pattern)
3) Casu Cowl - use Premier Yarns Deborah Norville Alpaca Dance
4) Abundance Table Runner - use Bernat Soy 
5) 198 Yards of Heaven - use Cascade yarn

New Designs!

Finally I am back to posting something on my blog!  It was been far too long since I posted anything!  I keep threatening to do this on a more regular basis but we see how that has worked :)  Maybe this time I will get back into a rhythm of regular posting.

The school year is all done and I have had a bit of time to relax and unwind.  Now I have shifted into gear and am getting things done!  This past week has been quite productive for me! I had two sock designs that I finished the sample, pattern writing, and testing many months ago (like in the fall - October and November!) but then never got around to doing the edits and publishing the patterns.  I finally got that done this past week!!  Both patterns are getting a lot of love on Ravelry and I have sold several patterns :)  YAY!!  I am counting these as finished objects now!!

Broken Glass

Masculine Socks

 I also had two designs that I had knit up the sample (again one was completed in early November and the other one in December) but I had not got around to do any more work on those.  I have now got the two patterns written up and have the first one out for testing.  I will get the second one out for testing on Sunday afternoon.  I will be without reliable internet for the rest of the weekend (beginning around lunch time today) until Sunday afternoon so I thought is best to hold off on the second test until I can more easily answer any questions.  These two also count as finished objects (mostly!!)

Churro is now being tested

Inner Peace will be up for testing Sunday afternoon

And I have ideas for several more sock designs that I want to get started on!  But first I really should get a few of my needles freed up!  I have two partially complete Sock Madness 11 socks to finish (well three actually, but I want to focus on two first and will get to the third pair once those are done).  I hope to make some serious progress on these this weekend!!  I'll report back next week with how I managed!  Hopefully I can report two more FOs next Friday!

Invitation to the Dance - one sock complete and the second is part way through the gusset decreasing.

Symphony Socks - both have gusset stitches picked up and one has a couple rounds of decreases done.

Let's see where I am next week!