WIPS

I’ve been working on a few things lately, but nothing “big” that has been fancy enough to post about.

Like these socks. Remember them?

Neither did I, until I started working on my other WIP, which is not an easily-traveling project. (More on that in a minute).

We were about to leave for New England last weekend when, through various unfortunate events, we missed our first flight and were cancelled on the second. We ended up staying home for the weekend, but the 7 hours we were in the airport were filled with intermittent naps and working on the sock. I finished the first one and started the second one before we were informed that our plans were cancelled and we should go home.

So at least I have the socks to work on during my morning commute, which has been fiber-free recently. Kind of hard to work on something like Pinctada in a car. Especially when you’re the type to get Exorcist-style carsick in the presence of the written word. Reading patterns is not an option for me.

Great, I have a sock. But I also have this:

Okay, I am super embarrassed that this is the only photo I have of this. It’s the En Pointe Wrap Sweater by Erin Archer. Her website is freaking adorable, though, so you should go check it out if you’re into crafty, cute, Anthropologie-style stuff. It’s supposed to look like this:

Cute, right? The sweater calls for a dk-weight yarn, but I decided to use my Artisan Yarns Baby Camel/Silk that I bought from Loop back in May. It looks like this:

This is a sock yarn, but seems to be working pretty well with the pattern, which I’m knitting on size 8 needles. The fabric is drapey and open, and feels reeeeeeally good. I keep rubbing it on my face. Like actually stopping my knitting to rub it on my face. Really.

The sweater is knitted from left to right, so the stripes are vertical, which is kind of neat. Except it requires both yarn cakes at the same time, so traveling with it is more challenging. Especially in a car. Especially because it has silk content. Especially because ever silk yarn cake I’ve wound has this charming way of falling apart, even when I knit from the outside, unless I keep it in some kind of super secure pantyhose cage thing. Regular project bags become a tangled mess…

ANYWAY, back to the sweater. The back is really pretty and scooped, too, which you can’t see in the above photo. I’m finished with all but one sleeve, so I should be doing a FO post of that soon.

Then, it’s challenge to see what will win out: my desire to use up all of my stashed black alpaca, or my interest in designing a sweater I’ve had a concept for since last summer… Hmmm… Your opinions are always welcome in the comments. 🙂

– YX

PS- In the meantime, how about you enter to win this awesome yarn and make an ombre en pointe sweater like the one above? I haven’t even used 100g of yarn yet on mine….