WIP Evolution

TGIF! It's been a long week, in part because the Mister was away on a work trip until last night, so I had to do school drop-offs as well as pick-ups, making for busier mornings. Rainbow is off from school today (and was yesterday as well) because of parent/teacher conferences, though, so I've got a little reprieve and a little extra time to enjoy my coffee.

This week has been largely about finishing works in progress. First it was my Love Note. Then I turned my attention to that project I can't show you. I finished that yesterday, with a very long tubular bind-off. This time I did it without putting half the stitches on a second needle, so I feel like I improved my skills a bit. I can't share a photo of the whole thing, but I can at least give you this peek at the finished edge:

I'm now down to two active WIPs: my Birch Pullover and the ankle socks I revived last week. I'm on the heel flap of sock number 2, so I expect the latter to be done soon, and we all know that the sweater is going to be a long-term project. The WIP list has gotten so much smaller, in fact, that I felt like I needed to start something new. So yesterday I finally wound some yarn that's been in my stash for a while and started swatching for a new summer sweater.

This is a swatch for Shana Cohen's Shoulder Season, which I'm knitting in Stranded Dyeworks merino/nylon fingering. I bought this yarn years ago; the colorway is called Four Two Two Four -- a reference to the distance between where Jude lived at the time and the Nashville location of the SSK retreat. Though the sweater is show with contrasting shoulder panels, I plan to knit mine all in one color, and it looks like two of the three skeins of yarn I have should be enough. I'm starting this now for this month's SSK knitalong (Shana is the featured designer this month), though I know I won't finish it before the end of the month. Luckily we can finish up WIPs and have them count in June, so I will get started on this now and plan to finish it up then.

We're expecting a beautiful day in the 80s here today, with rain moving in tonight and then a 30-degree drop in temperatures, so after my conference this morning with Rainbow's teachers, I'm going to enjoy it on my run. Here's hoping the weekend makes an early entrance for us all!