A WIP Roundup

As much as I love a long weekend, it makes the following Monday a bit rough, doesn't it? I was definitely dragging yesterday, and I may or may not have grabbed a cat nap or two during the afternoon. The weekend itself, though, was very restful. And I did quite a bit of crafting. You saw the spinning output on Sunday, but how about the knitting the crochet?

Despite the fact that we're in the middle of a verified heat wave with highs in the mid- to upper 90s, I already started thinking about my next sweater. One of the patterns on my 20 in 2020 list is Torbellino (Ravelry link), which I've been intending to knit for a couple of years and even bought yarn for at Maryland Sheep and Wool back in 2018. Kristen is sponsoring a sweater knitalong right now, so it seemed like the perfect time to cast on. So I swatched over the weekend.

Swatch gauge tool from Akerworks

Because the sweater is knit in the round, I swatched in the round using the cheater method. Do you know how to do this? I didn't want to sacrifice any yarn (if I had enough, I would have knit an actual tube and cut it to measure), so I did the faux in-the-round method of draping the strand of yarn loosely across the back of the swatch. Here's what the back looks like:

I used a US 5/3.75 mm needle for my swatch and am ever so slightly off on gauge (I'm getting 21 stitches over 4 inches rather than the called-for 22 stitches) but I like the fabric I'm getting and think going down a needle size would give me fabric with no drape. I have to do a couple of math checks, but I think it may work out to knit a size smaller than I'd intended using my gauge. I still have to wind the rest of my yarn before I cast on, but I'm trying to finish up my TTL Mystery Shawl first (more on that in a moment).

I worked on Rainbow's crochet blanket quite a bit over the weekend and am almost done with the 10th ball of Felici, with four more left. It's currently measuring about 42 inches wide. Once I'm finished with all the Felici, Rainbow will assess the size and decide whether it's big enough or whether we want to dig through the stash for more yarn to add. Though I started this for the 100 Day Project, I know I missed a few days recently, so I'm just continuing to work on it and keeping my own count.

Because one crochet blanket isn't enough, I started another one over the weekend. Rainbow had a giant ball of big box store acrylic that she'd started a granny square blanket with around the same time I started mine, but she recently decided she didn't want it anymore and ripped it out. She then gave me the skein to play with, and I'm using it to crochet a corner-to-corner blanket. Have you heard of this method? It's pretty ingenious and is rather like the crochet version of entrelac. I used this pattern (Ravelry link) to get started, and while the very start was a bit tricky, once I figured it out it's been smooth sailing. And this yarn seems particularly well suited to this method.

My plan is to try to use up all or nearly all of the skein of yarn (which is more than 1,100 yards!) and make a blanket for the couch in our family room, where we've been using two blankets knit by my aunt, one of which is a loosely knit lace blanket she made for Rainbow when she was born (in acrylic, so it's holding up fine, but it's not especially warm). I worked on this new blanket for a while this weekend to get the hang of it, but I've now put it aside to focus on getting Rainbow's blanket done.

Finally, my mystery shawl is WIP priority number one. The final clue came out yesterday, and I spent my crafting time yesterday working on it exclusively. I have one more chart and the bind off left to do, and I'm hoping to get through all that today, but of course work might throw a wrench into the plan.

Once this is done and blocked, I'll be sure to take some better photos -- these unblocked shots really do not do the design justice!