wip - hue shift afghan

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And just like that, I’m a quarter of the way through my hue shift afghan project.

Mitered squares turned out to not be too difficult to work on. I admit that this wip spent a few weeks in time-out here and there because of some absentmindedly picked-up stitches on the wrong side.

Or at one point, a completed mitered square using the wrong color combination. After those speed bumps though? Yes. This can be smooth sailing now.

Many knitters of this particular Knit Picks pattern kit suggested that I break the yarn as few times as possible to compensate for such tight yarn rations. I’m still unsure if I’m doing well on that front, but we’ll see soon enough.

yarn swift

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I finally purchased a yarn swift. Nick’s pretty happy to know that he won’t be asked to sit through holding a hank for me anymore—not that he complained much about it (or has been asked that often to do it either). I feel a little bit more like a legit knitter now.

I'll try not to think about how a dark wood variety of this swift was made available on Knitpicks just days after I received this order. Of

course

the better looking one would show up after I commit to a product!

wip : stranded show offs ii

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I'm about to turn the second heel of these Stranded Show-Off socks in a Zauberball. It's hard to put it down now that I see how lovely these colors look in this pattern. The Regia Hand-Dye Effect really did the pattern an injustice to me. When the yarn's a dream, the whole sock knitting experience is a dream as well.

I also finished Hannah Thissen's Slow Knitting. I like what ideas and values that this book fosters. As a long-time lurker of knitting blogs over the years it was exciting to see the profiles of names I recognised (like Bare Naked Wools, Brooklyn Tweed, Jill Draper Makes Stuff, etc). It was a little difficult reading this book in the format that I did (I'm talking about on a Kindle app, on an Ipad), but it's a recommended read if you're interested in source-conscious, sustainable wool and the mindset of slow knitting.

The book wasn't enough to completely assuage my knitting-related impatience--I look at my stash feeling anxious excitement about seeing what they'll look like knit up. Sometimes I stay up late knitting something just because I want to make some arbitrary knitting 'checkpoint' so it can be further along. The concepts resonated with me, though. After some digestion (and a few completed projects) I might be a Slower Knitter in due time.