WIPs and the frog pond

This little collection is my current pile of WIPs and half worked ideas - not including himself's socks which have half a sock to go and have been that way for about 8 months:

A sketch and yarn for a new design, already frogged due to the joining in the round looking weird

Another version of a design that's being published. I started knitting a third mitt to check gauge before submitting the pattern and then never finished it. I did confirm the gauge though. To the frog pond and then to become a hat possibly

My endless Audrey in Unst which needs half a sleeve, button bands and finishing. And I need this for work really. To be finished

An idea in progress for fingerless gloves. The pattern works but I'm not enjoying it much and my colour dominance isn't quite right. To the frog pond and then to become a colour work shawl although I will go back to this pattern idea.

Frogging WIPs is quite cathartic, freeing yourself from failed or failing projects that look at you unhappily from your knitting box, use up your needles, and stop you knitting other things. It also has a side benefit of returning lovely yarn to your stash for use in other projects. So that's my task for this morning after so I can clear the decks before starting samples for publication since I have quite a few to do.

WIP Wednesday

I rarely remember to participate in blog memes but since it's Wednesday and I have a WIP I thought I'd give WIP Wednesdays a try. This is a new design (possibly - I might not right it up) - a simple cabled slouchy hat in Colinette Art. I bought this yarn unlabelled at Ally Pally and in my head had decided it was Tao (despite not being very silky and definitely not a DK) so I'm knitting this far too tight and will run out of yarn. Still it's very nice yarn and knitting up into a lovely and very warm looking hat so if I can work out which colour it is I'll get another skein and carry on. It's a good colour on me and I need a decent winter hat given the cold damp weather in NW England and the prediction of another hard winter. I'm already in my winter coat and woolly jumpers...

You can see other WIPs via the links here

Starting, finishing and somewhere in the middle

Finished: The second version of the anonymous shawlette is finished and is pleasingly stripy and very warm. After a last minute panic to find more of the purple I'm really happy with the way it's turned out - and with the felted joins that meant I only had 4 ends to weave in. I've got a few test knitters working on this pattern at the moment and hope to release it in September. It's a nice quick knit (10-12 hours for the stripy version) so good for gifts.

Started: John's Scarf in a New Lanark aran yarn - this is an improvised pattern with moss stitch borders and a repeated saxon braid motif linked by wide ribs. I don't normally do cabled work (because I'm a blonde of little brain) but the tutorial on Eunny Jang's blog is very, very good. Since this is John's birthday present I possibly shouldn't be posting work in progress but I thought he might like to see how it's developing.

Somewhere in the middle: No updated picture of this but I've got past the sleeve separation on Peggy Sue and knitted about another inch (then got distracted by the above projects). Because I'm knit the medium since I fall between small and medium in the pattern sizes I'm adding some waist shaping and lengthening the section before the ribbing to make it a full length cardigan. So far so good...

So reasonably productive this week - although no progress on the three designs I have sketched out. As I said, I got distracted...