Checking in a day late with a Year of Projects post today. Year of Projects is a group of bloggers who plan their projects for the year and then blog about their progress weekly, usually on Sundays. You can find my list for the year here.
Spoilers ahead for the West Knits Shawlography MKAL!
Even though it’s been two weeks since my last YoP post, I actually feel like I don’t have too much knitting to talk about. Almost all of my knitting since last posting has been on the WestKnits Shawlography MKAL. I did finish Clue 2 on time, though just barely – I finished around 10 Thursday night (in my time zone, clues get released around 6am)! And I was able to get clue 3 finished this weekend. Since I calculate stiches, I know that Clue 1 was ~13K, clue 2 was ~29K, and clue 3 was ~11K. The large difference in the stitch numbers really annoys me. Like I understand why it would be split up this way (the stitch/ row count was about the same in each of the clues) but it still was kind of frustrating to have such a big difference. Not only did clue 2 have so many stitches, it had two rows that just took a long time, vs just one in clues 1 and 3. That’s the price you pay for cool textures though, so I’m not too mad about it. I’m really loving the colors I chose and they all look so good together, which I’m super happy about.
Eventually I’ll get some better closeups of this, as some of the textures and the way the colors interact is really cool, but between rain and being in the office, that’s not happening in time for this post haha! I’m looking forward to the last clue (though I have a slight concern that we might get another clue this week, like what happened last year) and finishing off this shawl actually mostly on time!
There has been a tiny bit of other knitting. I finished the first of my monkey socks, and I’m working my way through the toe up gusset increases on the second one now. I’m also a few rounds from the end of the yoke on my Wavelength sweater, which I’ll probably work on in the evenings this week. I also did cast on another pair of afterthought everything socks, as I went to see an opera in the theater Saturday and wanted something I could knit in the dark. As noted above, pictures aren’t happening today, so you’ll just have to stay tuned to see what those look like lol! I do have a bit of time to knit on the bus now, so that will likely result in progress on socks and/or hats – small stuff that I can fit in my purse.
I started going back to the office again last week. I had been going in over the spring/ summer, but then with the Delta variant and the fact that we were moving and all my stuff was in a box so it wasn’t worth it. But last week was the first day in our new space, and my county is back down to lower levels of risk, so I’ve started going back in. I was very proud of the fact that I wore knitwear every day I was in last week, and especially loved this outfit. This is my Love Note sweater I made last year.
Life has been a bit hectic lately, but I’m looking forward to checking back in with everyone’s posts soon. Have a great week!
Love Note is on my to-be-knit list. There are so many wonderful versions, yours included! The shawl is coming along marvelously. I love your color choices. Hope things settle down a little bit for you. For whatever reason this time of year always seems really hectic!
Thank you! It’s all been good stuff for the most part, just a lot of it!
That bright teal blue, oh my goodness! That is gorgeous! I wonder if designers consider the stitch counts when they’re divvying up sections for an MKAL.
It doesn’t seem so, but I wish he did haha
Congrats on completely clue 3! I am at the bobbles in clue 2.
Your shawl is gorgeous! I love the colors you chose too 🙂
The shawl is amazing, it looks so complicated. Fancy being able to have all your own knitwear for the office, the one you shared is lovely.
Excellent point about the varying stitches for each clue. That would be very frustrating to have such a huge difference when the time to do each clue remains the same. At a minimum each clue should provide the stitch count so that knitters can plan for the time needed. Yeah, I think I’m not a KAL person except to do one with my local knitting friends. Just love your Love Note. I really do need to do a stash dive and see if I have yarn I can use for that sweater and get it in my queue. 2022!! Hope all goes well as you go back to commuting and working in person.
That’s a lovely sweater! And I’ll be curious to see close-ups of the shawl—it does look like there’s a lot of interesting texture there.
congratulations on the MKAL – it looks great, but I agree, 29k stitches is HUGE for a weekly update!! (you get them weekly, right?) I’m glad that you manage to pull through though – and that you are comfortable with going into the office again!! Your outfit really rocks. 🙂 Did you use mohair for your Love Note? I’m going to knit a long version for my gran, but with sock yarn held double, because we couldn’t find mohair yarn in a suitable colour for her.