Steady Progress

The end of the school year always means a lot of grading for a college professor, so as you can imagine, yarn work has had to take a bit of a back seat lately. However, I have made steady progress on a couple of items I have introduced here before.

I am finding that the Granny Patchwork Blanket is very nice to pick up on evenings when I am tired and unable to think too deeply about fiber arts. Each square is made in exactly the same manner. I have also decided to plan each row of squares in advance (as Lucy on Attic24 did) since it makes the project more portable. I am really started to get excited about how well the colors are coming together. Lucy talks about "soul" colors as I have mentioned before, and these are definitely mine. They make me feel warm and fuzzy inside when I see them.

The picture below shows all of the squares.

On the knitting front, I have mostly been working on the sweater I am designing for myself. This process is so much fun, and I wonder why I waited so long to try it! If any of you are considering designing your own garment, just jump into it. Really, what is the worst that can happen; it is just yarn. Here is the back piece:

As you can probably tell, this will definitely need to be blocked, and once it is, the lace will open up quite a bit in the central motif. One element of this design that I am so pleased by is that I was able to get the honeycomb stitch into it in a way that did not simply mimic the traditional Aran look. I wanted a touch of Aran but with the twist of a lace motif that resembles cabling. 

I have started the front pieces and hope to keep chugging along on this sweater until it is finished. Usually, I tend to knit many different things at once without sticking to any one project for any length of time. I guess you would call me a process knitter since I am never too concerned about how long it takes me to finish something unless I am knitting a gift or test knitting for a designer. However, this time, I really want to finish this project as soon as I can just to see how it all turns out. I also need to calm those negative voices inside of me that keep telling me "it might be too small" or "the color isn't going to look right on you." I know that once it is finished and blocked, everything will work out. Once it is completed, I will write a longer post on my design process and about all of the helpful resources I used to make it happen. It really has been a simple process and one that I am enjoying.