Sneakily inserting my FOs into WIP Wednesday

I’m linking up with WIP Wednesday at Tami’s Amis this week to show you some knittedy things I’ve been working on, and if you go to Tami’s Amis you’ll be able to see lots of other posts about works in progress (generally woolly but not necessarily) so, do go and have a look, you might find a new favourite blogger.

I can’t believe it’s WIP Wednesday 45! I remember when WIP Wednesday started! (and all this was fields). And when WIP Wednesday started Tami hadn’t learned to knit yet, and look at her now, I try not to feel scared and inadequate but I do not succeed. Thanks Tami for all your sterling work on WIP Wednesday! I am going to repay you first of all by misusing it (;-) ) by showing a couple of finished objects and not waiting for FO Friday. I am very sorry and I will get to a WIP at the end although it isn’t actually a WIP because I am going to have to frog it. So this is a non-WIP-Wednesday but look, I am trying, I dragged things outside and photographed them and everything.

I even wove the ends in. I shall wear them, you know

This is the inside so you can admire my weaving

Endpaper mitts. I have not blocked these because I thought they looked ok unblocked and I am a great big lazy thing. I liked this pattern and would recommend it as a first colourwork project, because anything geometrical is easy to memorise (it is when you start messing about trying to knit seahorses that it gets difficult, see below). I did only two repeats of the pattern before beginning the thumb shaping. Eunny recommends three repeats, to which I say, Eunny, were you knitting these mitts perchance for a noble orangutan of your acquaintance or is it that you like your mitts to approach your elbow? Because two repeats is quite enough. Indeed one repeat is probably enough if you can’t be bothered to do two, perhaps you have to walk your Afghan hound, feed the koi carp, or rush off to watch The Real Housewives Of Orange County with absinthe and a Twix.

I failed at grafting the top. I had to codge it up

When I blocked them the Zauberball went hairy, I shall have nightmares

Having knitted endpaper mitts, I thought, gosh this is easy I shall knit more mittens. All the mittens! So I dug some sock yarn out of my stash, bought a zauberball, and started Mystery and Manners. Now, I have noticed on blogs and people’s ravelry project pages that people often downplay how difficult things are to knit. ‘Quick easy knit!’ they trill, brightly. ‘Knitted them in half an hour while waiting for Fluffy to have her ingrown toenail taken care of at the vet’s! Knitted with one arm while I was waiting for my wrist to come out of plaster! So easy I churned them out in less than one episode of The Apprentice and then just gave them to the postman!’. Well, these mittens were an absolute bloody nightmare. Not because of the pattern, which is well written, clear, and works, but because of the horrendous fiddliness. Oh, horrendous! Ladies: the thumb nearly broke me. Five needles, two colours, messing about with live stitches, horrific, I needed prozac. All I can say is that I suspect it gets easier with practice and I wanted the mittens enough that I ploughed on. Look, I even blocked them. That’s how much I like them.

Just like knitting with steel wire if steel wire had twigs in

Hippocampus. Please sympathise with me because, due to my own dopiness, I have made an error which can only be fixed by ripping back right to the cuff, and, as the cuff is a (simple) lace pattern and me and lace Do Not Go, I suspect I am going to end up just starting again (I have centred the pattern wrong. No, I can’t live with it, and I can live with a lot of things). I am loving these mitts (I will love them more when we are on track again) but I am knitting them out of Kureyon Sock and, gosh, what strange yarn. Have they roughed it up on purpose? Is it made out of (badly) spun Brillo pads? The colours are pretty but I hope it softens up a bit when it is blocked as otherwise, well, someone is going to be having some roughed-up hands this winter. Very strange yarn. I wonder if the error is secretly saying to me 'Go sell that nasty rough wool on ebay and start again with Mini Mochi', I shall have to consider.

Herewith my WIPS, and do click to see others. Wishing you merry WIPing.

Note for non-knitting readers: WIP = Work In Progress, FO = Finished Object, frog = unravel, Mittens = hard, Me = brave, Mitten Recipients = better be grateful (yes, I know that’s borrowing trouble. I know).