More WIPs

I might not have felt like casting on a new thing last week, but I sure did feel like it on Monday.  I felt much more like my usual self.  So there are now 16 WIPs in the bin.

I wore my newest sweater on Monday.  It's been getting pretty heavy wear. It fits really nicely and I love...I absolutely adore the yarn combination.

The sweater did not use up all of the Noro Silver Thaw and it did not use up all of the CWM Mulespinner either.  I had  a full skein of the Noro left plus a wee bit of a second and that bugged me.  I felt it was time the yarn was out of my stash.  I can always use the CWM yarn for mittens or toques.  There is just the right amount of it left for that but the Noro was all mine.

I knew I would have the Noro left as I knit the sweater and I seriously debated adding a turtleneck collar but there are times when that would be too much.  I thought about making a simple cowl. One skein of this delicious stuff would make a great cowl.  It is a lovely soft wool, nylon and angora fibre and it is the angora that makes it so perfect.

It all came to a head when I was putting things away to get ready for family coming for dinner on Sunday.   The yarn was still taking space on my sofa and rather than putting it away, I decided to whip up a quick cowl.

I didn't want anything fancy.  I just wanted a good easy to knit something.  I was still feeling as I did late last week (brain foggy) so I wanted it to be really easy knitting.  I wanted it to be a no fuss thing to wear too.  I didn't want t to roll up as plain stockinette would but I wasn't in the mood for garter stitch.

I had been contemplating starting some Broken Seed Stitch Socks and thought seed stitch was the perfect thing. Knitting that in the round using my style of scooping continental knitting is about as effortless as it gets.

And thus, a cowl is born.  I will wear it with the sweater when the back of my neck feels winters chill. 

I have based this one on the Huj Tub  (There should be umlauts over the  letter u, so as it says, Huge Tube) . I will increase as I knit to make a larger dimension so it sits less snug and hugs my upper shoulders just right.  I have the yarn so this felt like a good idea if the goal is to use this up. 

The stories of cats and red knitting will wait for another day.

WIP Works

When it came down to it, I couldn't do the cat yesterday, and I was not in the mood for the red Third Coast either.  

No, I did not cast on for anything new either.  WHO AM I?

I really didn't  feel like casting on something that I wasn't going to finish for a very long time.  I have enough of those.  There are 15 WIPs in the bin already and I really want to finish them.  Besides my bandwidth did not stretch to casting something else on.  I needed a knit with no thinking required. 

The Musselborough hat is perfect.  It's a tube.  I could do that, so that is what I worked on.  

I will probably knit on the red sweater today.  It would be so nice to separate for the body today.  I'm not sure I can do it, but I should be able to have the yoke done by Monday.  

So off to knitting today.  Coffee is to hand, cat things are near, and I am ready to go.  Cat things, you say?  Sure.  It would be nice to get that done too.  

All about the cat

This post is all about the cat.  It is actually looking sort of cat like now except for the nose being too pointy. The pattern shows you how stuffing makes it right.

I do have a couple problems though.   

The chin bit is vey cat like, but seems to be a bit offset making the nose seem as if it goes up at an angle. If you look at the markers you can see what I mean.  The other error I made is that his white nose patch is too big.  Much too big. His whole face is cream here and that was not what Casper looked like.

I do have some big successes too.  

I don't make a lot of toys and I am not into amigurumi or math, so the sculptural abilities of crochet are not currently part of what I know about crochet.  I am starting to get a small whiff of understanding though and am feeling much more comfortable with this cat pattern.  That is a big win.

I am really pleased with my colour plans so cat will look similar to Casper.  He was a caramel coloured tabby with quite a bit of  lighter colour striping.  My two golds are looking pretty good,

with just a shade of difference, very much like Casper.  I have crochet colour changing down pat after this. 

I am particularly pleased with the way I did his neck colouring.  That creamy neck patch looks just as it should.

I think.  I have to check pictures of Casper again to see if his neck was like this or if I am remembering a cat we had when the boys were small.  I do like the way it looks.

There is a very good chance that this version of the cat will be frogged and restarted.  I kept working on it yesterday even though I knew the cream face was too much.  I was so sure it would sort itself out and it really wasn't that big, was it?

We all know how it is.  You know there is a problem but you are sure you can block it out.  We have all been there and it happens with crochet just as much. 

I was planning to do the next step, the stuffing and face embroidery, but now I think I would feel better if I redid it said cat all the things I have learned so far.