Alrighty then!
Since taking stock of my WIPs, I actually did manage to finish a few, create a few more and accumulate more yarn. But let's not get ahead of ourselves.
I finished the Baggy Tweedy Beanie fairly quickly and have been wearing it pretty much every day since! Check out how it looks on a cute, if slightly reluctant model:
I also finished the Vanilla Latte Socks in the Joy to the Wool Christmas colourway, 'Holly and Ivy'. I just need to block them and then I'll post some nice pics.
Before I posted last time, I had actually also finished the Keighley Mitts, designed by Victoria Marchant. I actually started these last year in November very spontaneously after seeing them on IG, but I got a bit frustrated because I managed to break two 2.0 mm rosewood needles while making the picot edge for the first one, so they got left on the back burner. I'm so glad I finished these, because I have been wearing them a lot, and I love everything about them, from the yarn (Regia Premium Merino Yak) to the picot edge to Victoria's original Kiss Stitch design. Also they make me think of Downton Abbey because Yorkshire :D
And another spontaneous cast-on, which I made fairly quick work of was the Storm Shawl by Joji Locatelli, which only took me a few days from start to finish. Last year, I very spontaneously bought two skeins of snow dyed 100% wool yarn from Tõstamaa Folk Art Centre and didn't actually know what to do with them because the very variegated colour won't show any cables or lace and each skein is a unique colour. So when I saw Annijuuti Knits talk about this shawl on her knitting podcast and refer to it as a one skein wonder, I knew I had to make it! It is super easy, the garter stitch is only interrupted by a few rows of dropped stitches or eyelets every now and then, and the picot edge is cute. The design is called 'Storm' after the colourway of the original yarn the designer used, but my shawl makes me think of a warm breeze and sangria tbh :-) Such a happy little pop of colour!
I had bought seven skeins of Drops Soft Tweed thinking about a sweater, but when Jana from the Kettu Knits podcast (and the dyer behind the Kettu Yarns label) showed the Pretty Little Plie cardigan by Veera Välimäki, I realised this was what my yarn wanted to become! I love it for its simplicity as it's mostly just garter stitch and it has no buttons! This is how far I've gotten so far:
I also started a pair of Waffles in Bed socks using the other yarn set from Joy to the Wool, their Halloween colourway called 'Joy to the Wooo-l', although I decided to try out the Fish Lips Kiss Heel construction by Patty-Joy White instead of the heel construction the pattern suggests. I really like it, because it doesn't leave holes or require picking up any stitches from the sides.
Finally, because I seem to be on a sock kick lately, I started another pair of socks! This time I'm not following a specific written pattern, but using a motif that I found in the Hitomi Shida's book Japanese Knitting Stitch Bible. I decided to go toe up, using Judy's Magic Cast-On, and I am also using the Fish Lips Kiss Heel for these socks. Not gonna lie, I am pretty happy with them, and I love the yarn, which is once again Regia Premium Merino Yak. I have a few days off from work, which should be enough to finish the socks, but for the time being, they look like this:
I've already been browsing the Japanese Knitting Stitch Bible for ideas for more socks and I already have some new ideas for projects, but I might write about those another time :-)
