New month, new progress

I actually have some FOs to show off again.

First and most exciting (for me anyway) - the sample pair of mittens for my pattern!

I had wanted a picture of them in the snow, but then it rained all through the night after I finished them. I think I might almost like this picture better than what I had planned though. The leaves peeking through kind of set off the cream and brown.

Now I just need to finish knitting the grey and red pair, so I can add my photos to the pattern. I still have to wait until my testers are done before I call it complete, but I'm one step closer!

 

Also finished - the cowl I knit for the Ravellenic games. I got imaginary awards for cross cowling, lace luge, single skein speed skate, and stash skeleton. First 'real' project I've done using yarn I spun, and I love it.

Here it is all laid out for blocking-

 

My other project photo was an awful awkward angled selfie, since I didn't have anyone handy to take it for me. Instead of sharing that I'll hold out and hope for better future pics!

 

I also attempted a rainbow of hexis for my Beekeeper's blanket, but finished just after the cutoff time (darn it)

 

 

Still, this was enough to push me to nearly 60 hexis (let's not talk about how many I have left to go, alright?)

 

So that's me for this month. Looking forward to finishing a couple things before next post...and hopefully casting on one new project. I've been good, I think I deserve it :)

 

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Working on getting stuff done - including my pattern!

Just last month, I posted about talking myself into some bravery and submitting my mitten pattern to Knit picks for the independent designer program (IDP). Well I did it, and heard back incredibly quickly with an acceptance. So exciting!

I am still finishing up on knitting the sample for pattern photography, but once I got my yarn support from KP I almost immediately cast on for the sample pair. The yarn was so gorgeous, I couldn't help it.

 

So now I have one and a half mittens in the original yarn, and a thumb shy of a full mitten in the new yarn. Since I can't resist showing off a little bit, here is a quick peek at the back of the mitten -

(Just pretend the lighting caught the colors as nicely as the pic above, please - it was the best I could do with the weather today!)

 

 

Right now the pattern itself is going through testing with some helpful knitter friends, and I'm pretty excited to see how it looks with the different yarn choices.

As scary as it is to 'put myself out there' the process is pretty fun too. I'm glad that, after holding on to this idea for over year, I'm finally doing it.

 

Other things I'm finally getting to? That big list of WIPs of course!

The washcloth is done -

Nice and big, I think this will be a repeated pattern.

 

The cotton double knit trivet didn't fair as well though. After a year if letting it sit in the basket, I decided to frog it. It was going to be too small anyway and I wasn't liking the design much either.

 

My Sherlock blanket is coming along nicely, and has three new squares.

Two of them are inspired by the latest season's first episode

An underground square, using a chart from Jennie Claver

 

And a bonfire square, which was a pattern I wrote up (and added to the other ones I had already posted here)

 

The other is more book-related (although there's been a bee reference thrown in the bbc series too) it's the bee square from Rav user ambrrr modified from the Apis Dorsata pattern

 

With all the squares I still want to knit (plus the ones I'm sure will be designed by others in the future) I'm thinking this blanket may be king sized before I'm ready to call it done!

 

For a while though, I'm going to be pretty busy with the mitten knitting. Between them and the cowl I'm starting for the Rav games tomorrow, there probably be much progress in the other WIPs until next month.

 

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