Hue Shift Part II

   Earlier in the year, I finished up one quadrant of my Hue Shift afghan,

and over the weekend, I finished up my second quadrant.  I planned on knitting one square per day, but got sidetracked once or twice and had to catch up.  Each square takes about 40 minutes to finish, assuming I don't get distracted.

   I have a love/hate relationship with garter stitch.  I love how squishy the finished fabric is, but I really hate knitting in garter (I love me some purling!).  It seems to be harder on my hands since I have to "open up" each stitch in order to knit, whereas for purling, I can just slip the needle in and wrap the stitch with very little effort.  It might just be my knitting style...

   Anyway, these two sections finish up all of the solid color squares.  Hopefully the color changes for the next two sections will be interesting enough to get them finished soon... and by soon I mean on this side of Christmas.

Hue Shift Section 1

   Last night I finished the last mitered square and wove in the final ends on the first section of my Hue Shift Afghan.  Although this really isn't a real FO, I'm considering it to be one WIP done.  Only three more sections to be done and the border.  Maybe it'll be done by Christmas.

   Over the weekend, I think I'll start stitching the third installment of Santa's Village, North Pole Post Office.  Hopefully I'll have something to show after my own weekend stitching shut-in.

coming up next...

   With Golden Wheat awaiting a second sleeve, blocking, and some buttons, I thought I'd plan out what I'll be working on next.

   Over the last few nights, I've pulled out the first section of my Hue Shift afghan, and have been adding a few more mitered squares here and there.  Here's what it looked like a few weeks ago.

Pattern: Hue Shift Afghan

Yarn: Knit Picks Brava Sport

Kit: Hue Shift Afghan Kit, Decor 

As of last night, 7 more squares have been added.  It should only take another night to add the final two squares and weave in a bunch of ends.  Once the ends are woven, I'll be calling this a finished WIP even though there are three more sections just like this one to do.

   Thinking about finishing up Golden Wheat brings me to the next sweater I'll be focusing on, Cassidy.  This baby is a long hibernating UFO that is about halfway done.  I've got two new sweaters that I want to CO soon, but I think it'll be a massive relief to get Cassidy off the needles.

Pattern: Cassidy, Chic Knits

Yarn: elann.com Peruvian Highland Wool

Colorway: 2583 Deep Blue Sea

Apologies for the terrible photo, but the weather has been anything but cooperative every time I've got a few minutes to take some pictures.  Cassidy is another fantastic Bonne Marie Burns pattern that I cast on in December (OMG...) 2010!  I'm ashamed it's taken me this long to knit the thing.  I've already gotten the back, one sleeve, and more than half of one front done, so it really is at about the halfway mark.  This is definitely one of my oldest UFOs that I have no intension of ever frogging.  I'd like to get this done in time to wear it at least once this season, which for Nebraska means, my deadline could either be sometime in March or in April.

   In non-knitting news, I received North Pole Post Office in the mail last week and am ready to start stitching once I get a couple of things off the needles.

Pattern: CCN Santa's Village

Fabric: Wichelt 32 count Amber Linen, 2 over 2

Floss: as charted

So far, NP Post Office is my favorite of the Santa's Village charts, but I know there are reindeer coming, so we'll see if this one holds up as my favorite as new charts are released.

weekly WIP report

   This week settled down a bit for me so I was able to spend a bit more time with the needles.  I finally got a decent start on Poinsettia Place.

Pattern: Poinsettia Place, CCN

Fabric: 32 count amber linen, Wichelt (2 over 2)

Floss: DMC and GAST as charted

I love stitching CCN designs.  They are fun, easy pieces that stay interesting.   I'm clearly a sucker for chart series as well.  Since, the cottage is nearing completion, I should easily be done with this before the end of the month; more likely the end of this coming week.  Which means I'm still on track to finish one a month, so this project will be done in time for Christmas!  Thinking ahead to how I'll finish Santa's Village, it would make a great mini quilt/wall hanging.  Problem is I don't have a sewing machine, nor any experience in making a hanging like I'm picturing.  I did some machine sewing as a teenager, but it's been a long time...  Maybe this is a good time to start saving up to get a machine and spend some time practicing, which I'm sure would be another slip down the rabbit hole a new hobby creates.

   As far a knitting goes, the first section of my hue shift afghan grew a bit more.  I'm now up to 16 of 25 mitered squares for the first section.  

Still a long way to go, but picking this WIP up every once in a while is still fun.  I have no doubts that I will finish this.  Hopefully this year.

   I also CO a new project which is just beginning to grow.  Here's a peek.

  

weekly WIP report

   This week was surprisingly productive considering the amount of work I've got going on.  The semester is nearly over and it's good to get a little boost when dealing with stress with some visible progress on the things I can control... my WIPs.

   Early in the week I got a few more squares on my Hue Shift afghan completed.

   It will be good to get into more of the brighter colors.  I purposely started with one of the darker colored segments to get those out of the way.

   I also managed to spend a few hours restitching my January Cottage.

   Now that the bulk of the cottage is finished, there really isn't a whole lot left to complete before I can move on to the April Cottage.

   The biggest news of the week is that the knitting on Peterborough is finished!  Now comes all of the seaming and weaving in the ends.

   I'm a little embarrassed to say that the last of the final sleeve took less than two evenings to finish knitting, soak, and block.

   My sleeves are still pinned out and are nearly dry, but you can see that in the meantime I got a start on weaving in ends and seaming the shoulders and back of the neck together. 

  

   I love using Mirasol yarns, but the one downside is that the skeins are so short.  I believe I used about 16 skeins to finish the knitting on this and that makes for a whole lot of ends to weave in.  Hopefully I can break up the seaming into chunks so I don't get too burned out on this.  I doubt I'll get it finished before I leave for the Thanksgiving holiday, but the good news is that it should be finished when it's still cold enough out to wear it!

Oh, and after finishing up knitting Peterborough, I managed to cast off a sock.  Now to find the motivation to start the second.