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:

Sixth Year of Projects - Week 6 & 7

So things have been off around here for the past two weeks.  The fan on my laptop died on August 3rd,  Computer guy said he could have it ready on the following Monday or Tuesday (August 8th or 9th).  Go to pick it up and he said oh sorry - hopefully by Friday (August 12th).  Got a call on Saturday that it was ready so I ran down quick and rescued it!!  I had been using my husband's laptop for the past almost two weeks and I like my laptop better!!  I didn't want to mess with all his automatic settings so I didn't log into my blog to update it for last week.  I had been making some progress with my projects though!!

My other exciting news - on August 11th (this past Thursday) I had LASIK surgery to correct my bad eyes!!!  I am so happy with them now!!!  No more glasses (except for cheater glasses for reading, but I am OK with that!! - much better than the trifocals I was wearing all the time before!)  I went in for a follow-up appointment Friday morning and their tests find my vision is now 20/20 with no glasses!! I am SO happy!!  I was actually able to "almost" read the line one below the 20/20 line!  So maybe my vision will continue to improve a bit more as I continue healing.

So my crafting updates:

1) Entanglements (Tour-de-Sock 2016 Stage 6 socks) are all finished now!  They were fairly close to completion on my last update and I finished them up on August 2nd.  I am happy with these!!

2) Diamondback Socks (Tour-de-Sock 2016 Stage 3 socks)  I spent some time these past two weeks working on these and came to the conclusion that I just was not enjoying the knit,  There is too much out there to knit to force myself to work on something that is not bringing me joy.  I have frogged these and will use the yarn for something else.  The pattern is lovely but I just was not feeling the joy working on them.

3) Coffee Cantata (Sock Madness 10 Round 6 socks) - I got a fair bit of work done on these last week and am happy with my progress,  They will be on hold for a week or two now while my eyes heal nicely!  Thin yarn and lots of cables might not be my best choice for knitting while I heal!

4) Celtic Myths Shawl - this is coming along nicely,  I have now completed the body of the shawl and am ready to begin the cable edge. Tough to get a decent picture since it is now all bunched up on the cable of the needles.

5) Bubbles Blanket - I have made some excellent progress on this one.  I have increased it from about 13 inches to about 19 inches now.  I am hoping that this will be a finish in the next couple weeks.  Figures I am working on an afghan during a heat wave...

I suspect I will spend some more time on the Bubbles Blanket over the next several days as my eyes continue to heal.  I can do crochet more easily without putting much strain on my eyes since I can mostly do it by feel.  The fingering weight projects will likely be put aside for a week or so until my eyes are more healed up.  I do not want to strain my new eyeballs!!

Until next week!!

WIP-it Down Thanksgiving 2015 - Wind Down

Yesterday was the final day of my WIP-it Down week (well, week plus a couple days)  I am back to work today, but yesterday I managed to get a fair bit done even though the morning and early afternoon were tied up with Church stuff.

My plans for yesterday were to:

1. Frog my Advent Scarf and reclaim the needles, yarn, and beads for something else.  This was done and now I have my needles freed up!

2. Tuck in the tails on my Sock Scrap Blanket and maybe add a few more squares. - I got the tails all tucked in but that was all.

3. Finish my Herding Cats Mittens and get the pattern written up so I can get it out for testing. - This I did not finish...

4. Add more squares onto my charity afghan.  This I also did not get to.  I did not sleep well the night before and was too tired and fuzzy to focus on much...

I would say that this WIP-it Down week was a great success!!  I finished several projects that had been languishing away and made some serious progress in several other projects.  Now I can keep up with these and hope to arrange another WIP-it Down week soon!! Maybe in mid December once the school year is over?

WIP-it Down Thanksgiving 2015 - Day 10

So yesterday this was what I accomplished:

1, All my yarn is now photographed.  I still need to get it posted into my Etsy store.  That will have to wait for a bit.  I need to double check that my pictures are a good representation of the true colors!

2. I got some good pictures of the two samples and the ten swatches for my book idea.  I got the patterns for the two samples all written up and got the first draft of the proposal written!  I want to let it sit for a day or two and I will go back to it in a few days to proofread it before I send it away!  Wish me luck!!

3. I got some more work done on my Herding Cats design.  I just have to bind off and finish the thumb.  I may work at finishing this off today since I am so close!

Day 10: Today is the final day of my WIP-it Down week (well, week plus a couple days) Tomorrow I am back to work, but today (after we get home from Church) my plans include:

1. Frogging my Advent Scarf and reclaiming the needles, yarn, and beads for something else (this has not been touched in ages - check the date in the picture - July 24th 2013!!).  It is time to let this project go.

2. Tucking in the tails on my Sock Scrap Blanket and maybe adding a few more squares.  I have quite a few tails already tucked in but I have several more that need to be tucked in.  I have not done anything with this project sine July or so.  Time to shake the dust off it!

3. Finish my Herding Cats Mittens and get the pattern written up so I can get it out for testing.

4. Adding more squares onto my charity afghan.  I got some work done on this one earlier this week and I want to get some more squares added on today!