New Year WIP round up!

Phew, the holiday madness is behind us!  But I still have some knitting lingering from December that I’m enjoying getting on with now that my Christmas knitting is but a memory.

Okay, strictly speaking those socks in the manly Regia jacquard yarn (Spring Cable socks, the cable is there somewhere, I promise) are a Christmas leftover.  With Mr. Salamander home from mid-November nursing a back injury, it proved impossible to complete a surprise pair of socks in time for Christmas, so I wrapped up the WIP, needles and all, and resumed working on it around Boxing Day.  But I don’t really count them as a Christmas failure since when I planned the project I was still 2 weeks out from starting my new job and anticipated having plenty of time while Mr. Salamander was at work to finish them.  Fortunately his back just needed a few weeks of babying, and he’s back up and at ’em starting this week.

See?  There’s totally a cable hidden in there.

The sherbet coloured socks are for me, of course, Anastasia socks by MintyFresh.  They have been ideal companions this winter, amusing me at choral concerts and big social gatherings, and now that I’m back at work (daytime childcare), I have been working on them at nap time as I alternate reading chapters from The Scarlet Letter and The Hunger Games on my Kindle app for iTouch.

And the shawl!  Remember a month ago when I was laughing at the hubris of thinking I would actually start a shawl in the car on a road trip?  Well, I did!  The first chart on the Percy Scarf is decidedly simple enough for knitting in company, although the Frost Flower chart (with patterned rows on both right and wrong sides) had to wait until I got home.  I’ve finished the first repeat; planning to do 2.5 instead of 1.5 as in the original.  I had actually planned to do this the first time I knit this pattern, but was worried I’d run out of yarn.  I’m happy to be working on it again with a more generous skein, since the Frost Flower pattern is one of my favourite lace stitches, and I’m gratified to find things are going fairly quickly this time since I’m a little more familiar with the pattern.

As usual I have big plans coming up.  Just moments ago, I wound my Kattikloo sock yarn from this past summer’s Fibrations Festival in preparation for casting on the Ms. Prynne cowl (hence my decision to read The Scarlet Letter).  I am very close to finishing work on the Ur-Bun coat pattern, too, and thinking about a series of hat patterns for BJD starting with a free toque for all sizes…if I can squeeze in enough time for design in between my plans for another shawl and still more socks!