Well, something’s off the needles – YOP 20/21 – Week 19

Happy Sunday everyone! Since it’s Sunday, I’ll be writing about my progress for my Year of Projects projects. YoP is a Ravelry group of bloggers who plan a year’s worth of projects and then blog about working on them. You can find my plans here.

This week, I made some really good progress! I’m on a little mini staycation, I’m not going anywhere but I took off last Thursday/Friday and this Monday – Wednesday off. In that time, I committed to getting at least one project off the needles to try and reduce my WIP/UFO pile. I had thrown my Ripple Bralette in my bag when my roommate and I went to vote. This ended up being a great plan, as my voting center was not very well organized/ prepared for the 6 am rush and we ended up waiting about 90 minutes. So that meant I was able to put a dent in that and figured I could finish it off this weekend, which I did yesterday!

• Pattern: Ripple Bralette DK by Jessie Mae Martinson
• Yarn: Teenybutton Studio Squish DK in St Charles Streetcar (green) and Soggy Bottom (multicolored)
• Timeline: Cast on 9/25, Cast off 11/8 (not worked on at all most of November)

I’m really happy with how this one turned out! This is the 3rd Ripple Bralette I’ve knit (one in the original fingering weight, one in DK) and this is definitely the best fitting. I think the key is making both the body and and straps slightly shorter than you think they should be. While I like the idea of making a longer sort of tank top, I don’t think I can just lengthen this pattern as written for my body. The band is designed to be pretty tight, so because I start to get much wider right under my bust, trying to add length just kind of makes this uncomfortable to wear. On my last one, this means it sits up more and then the straps are kind of flopping around. Since I tracked all my stitches in Excel, I now have a perfect template if I want to make this again!

In other project news, I’ve made great progress on my Plush Sweater! I’ll probably finish the second sleeve tomorrow, and then there’s just the band and the hem. I’m 85% done according to Excel, and my projected complete date is 11/15, though that takes into account some days I didn’t knit at all, and a few days where I definitely got less done as I was focusing on other projects. The st per day count for my 11/20 deadline is down to 787! I also put a little bit of work on my Slipstravaganza MKAL shawl this week. I’m not quite sure what to do about this one. I really like it, but at over 450 stitches per row now (and the prospect of more than 900 in the not to distant future), it’s one of those projects where you only need to work on it if you want to see any progress. I knit over 3K stitches on it last Sunday (which is a bit more than I usually get done in a day) and it’s like maybe an inch of knitting. I’m not sure I want to focus only on this, after I finish my Plush Sweater I need to work on a baby sweater for my sister’s friend and want to try and finish some of my older projects off? I also probably need to start the lace shawl I want to make for my friend for her wedding. Plus, I still have sweater stashes that I want to work on during this YoP year. I know I have until June to do that but… winter is definitely better sweater knitting weather. So we’ll see. Sigh, why can’t I just stay home all day and knit lol?

To close us out, here’s a couple photos from the past few days. I’m taking advantage of this weather and trying to enjoy the last couple days of outdoor knitting weather! Yesterday, I was up early waiting for some contractors to come to my condo, and I made some biscuits since my roommate had some leftover heavy cream from something she made during the week and the self rising flour I bought for one of the baking challenges had a two ingredient recipie on the side of the bag. They came out really good!

Hope everyone has a good week – what are you working on?