WIP Wednesday: Sweaters, Socks, Shawls and Patches

I'm in a flux period with my making lately. I've finished several long-term projects and so now it feels like I'm auditioning for the spot with new projects. I'm generally a fairly monogamous knitter - I try to have 1 fingering weight sweater, 1 dk/worsted/aran weight sweater, and 1 pair of socks going at any given time. This way I feel like I can just grab whatever project suits my mood as well as my circumstances. Example: I went to a hockey game in December, so I cast on a pair of socks to bring with me. A sweater would have been too large to get into the arena. I also like to vary the difficulty of the projects - you don't want a complicated pattern with multiple lace charts to knit where people may be interrupting you all the time. These are the things that go on in my head, lol. 

Anyway, this week's list of WIPs is very indicative of that searching type of mood, because I have cast on several projects just this week. 

First up are the aforementioned Hockey Socks. This project was seriously a 10 minute decision that would fit in my clutch bag to take to the arena for a Solar Bears hockey game. This is my second time with both this pattern and this yarn, just in a different colorway. I decided to knit up the Jaywalker pattern in this Premier yarns Fruits Fingering in the Dragonfruit colorway this time. I knitted some watermelon print socks last year, and even though this yarn is acrylic I actually really like the socks. They are comfy and soft and were useful to wear with my boots in the winter. I liked these two colorways the best, but honestly the Dragonfruit feels a little boring compared to the watermelon print. So I picked the Jaywalker because the chevron design will jazz up this yarn. I'm really liking how they look so far, but as I have no deadline on these at all they will probably be a background project in between others, which is fine by me.

Second: I have been working on the back piece of my first ever actual antique pattern: The Susan Shaw Cardigan. This is from a Bestway booklet from 1943. I first saw this on Retro Claude's you tube channel and immediately fell in love with her version. It looked simple enough that I could work out sizing it up to fit me - the original pattern is written for a 34-36" bust, so quite a bit smaller than me. I'm starting with the back piece since it's just stockinette with ribbing on the bottom, so I can get in the swing before I start adding a cable pattern. I've got a little over an inch of the bottom ribbing done, so this one is rather slow going but because it's just stockinette and ribbed this is a great small project to take with me even if people will be talking to me. Most of this was accomplished during church, for example. I'm making this up in Knit Picks Stroll in the Hollyberry colorway which I bought specifically to make this sweater last September when they had a great sale on Stroll. I seriously love this yarn. It's so pillowy and soft. I've made socks in it before, but never a sweater and I'm very excited to wear this one.

Third: I cast on the Haruni Shawl on Friday night and it's been very enjoyable - probably my most engaging knit of the bunch. I love the beginnings of a shawl, but as it gets bigger and bigger they tend to feel very daunting to me, and because of this I tend to not knit them often. I haven't knit one since 2020 though, so I feel like it's time lol. This project was honestly a case of a cool yarn I just wanted to knit up - Yarn Bee's Authentic Hand-Dyed in the Stonework colorway. I'm always kind of bad at picking hand dyed yarns because they tend to be in such crazy colors that I don't tend to wear, but this one felt much more subdued but still unique. I just really wanted to work with it and see what it's like, so here we are. This pattern is pretty straight forward, so not too attention-demanding. 

Fourth: This pattern was just released on April 1st and I immediately just knew I had to make it. It's the new Rose Street Cardigan on Squid's School of Vintage Knitting's Patreon group. I adore everything about this cardigan. I also really love the color of hers, but I am knitting from my ridiculously large stash and I don't have that color in the right weight. What I do have is more Knit Picks Stroll in the Duchess Heather colorway. This was purchased as a contender for the Susan Shaw cardigan, but I decided on the other color. I still really like this color, and I feel like this would be beautiful in that design. A nice basic with 40s flair. So this will be another long-term project given that it's in fingering weight, but I don't have any light weight sweaters that have full length long sleeves, so that will be a nice addition to my wardrobe. I'm very excited about this one as well.

And finally, I have been playing around with my new embroidery machine. I never had this fancy of a machine on my radar before simply because they are so expensive, so I've never really even thought much about machine embroidery. It's like I just wrote it out of the equation. But sewing people are amazing people and through a very kind friend who was buying a new long arm quilting machine and needed to clear things out to fit it, I was able to buy an older Husqvarna Viking Designer Ruby for a steal of a deal. Not only is this a great sewing machine in general, but it also a full on embroidery machine and the woman I bought it from used it for machine quilting and gave me all the hoops 5x7" and larger. It's a little overwhelming to think of all the things I could do with this machine, but I started off with the idea of making patches. I really wanted something knitting related, so I found a cute design online and grabbed some color changing thread I was given years ago and a patch was born!

It's really bizarre to think that I made this. Ideally, I would be using a smaller hoop for projects this size (you waste a lot of fabric this way), so eventually I will try to find the smaller size round hoops. I also have access to digitizing software, so I have lots of fun plans for custom patches I could make simply because I can now. I have yet to use this machine for sewing any garments, but that will change very soon. Once I've used this more and I understand its abilities a bit better, I will post a review of the machine itself in case you'd be interested. Even though this is an older computerized machine, the bones are good and it uses vp3 files for the embroidery designs, which are still easily found or made. It's a great machine regardless of being about 10 years old.

Anyway, that's what I have going on right now for my WIPs. Some of these will take a long time to make, so I won't show the same things each Wednesday (that would get pretty boring), but I will check in from time to time for updates as things develop more.