November 2018 – Love Charlie

I can’t believe how quickly the last two and a half weeks have gone… and I am blown away by the amount of people who are participating in WIPvember. It is incredible!

I wanted to check in, and let you see how I’ve been progressing towards my goals for WIPvember. I have been a bit AWOL the last week for a few reasons… Last weekend I spent Saturday with Fay in Liverpool Central Library (One of my absolute favourite places) looking through everyone’s posts for WIPvember and drafting some design ideas, and spent the evening looking after my Mother-in-laws dogs.

Sunday we had a family day and after walking the dogs around Marbury Park, we took them home and enjoyed a lovely roast dinner. I managed to do a lot of crocheting last weekend but unfortunately didn’t manage to catch the day light to take photos of the progress I’d made. (Apart from the blanket – but I will share that below…) Are you finding it difficult to capture content for instagram now that it is dark in the mornings and evenings? I’m finding I have to take several photos on the weekends to make sure I have content mid-week. (Something I obviously didn’t do last weekend as you can see from my IG) Oh dear!

This week, I spent the first two evenings working on a Love Charlie pattern that I want to release before the end of the year, and the rest of the week I have either had plans, or been too exhausted to pick up a hook or needle. Work has been absolutely crazy this last week, and I haven’t managed to get any time during a lunch break to make any progress either… What a nightmare! But last night I got in a few hours, and today too… and tomorrow we’re having a movie day, so I’ll hopefully make a fair bit of progress then.

Anyway… to recap, here are my goals for the whole of November.

Finish Granny Square blanket.
Complete 2 colour repeats on Cosy Stripe Blanket
Finish Criss Cross Shawl
Start & finish treasure Island Shawl
Make arms & legs of ginger cat
Make my Candy Cane socks.

The first thing I did in WIPvember was finish Katie’s Christmas Socks. Originally, I wanted to finish these as my second pair of socks for the #sockalong2018 but I ran out of time. I did however manage to finish these in the first week of WIPvember.

I then started the Mustard Treasure Island Shawl, and my second Candy Cane sock… I was waiting on another sock needle so I could make both at the same time. These have become my lunch time projects as they’re small and easy to get on with.

Once I had finished Katie’s Christmas socks, I started working on my Granny Square blanket. I started by joining all of the 64 squares into 8-square strips. I managed to do this in an evening, and spent the next week joining the strips and adding an extremely simple border on it. This blanket used up stash acrylic in pastel colours, and it is the first blanket that I have constructed randomly. I didn’t arrange the squares before joining them, I just reached for the next one each time and added it in. Although this sounds like a simple task, it was a huge leap of faith for me as I am a bit (a lot) of a control freak and like things to be perfect. Thoughts: It saved a lot of time, however if the colours were more contrasting between squares, I think I would have laid them out first.

I finished the Treasure Island shawl on Monday night. I don’t have enough good words for this pattern. It is my go-to pattern when I want another shawl or to make someone a gift. It is simple, easy to make, and designed by a fantastic person – Hannah from @thecozycottagecrochet This is in acrylic Stylecraft special DK in Gold, and is for one of my best friends. I chose acrylic so it is more durable and can be thrown in the washing machine easily.

Last night, I made some limbs :’) I made two arms, two legs and a tail for the amigurumi ginger cat. This is already more progress than I planned for my WIPvember goal, but for now I’m going to put this WIP to the side to make time for my cosy stripe blanket and Criss Cross Shawl.

I think we may be going to watch Bohemian Rhapsody or the new Fantastic Beasts at the cinema this weekend so that’s exciting! And we’ve just started binge watching Killing Eve, so I think there will be a lot of progress soon. Next weekend I am out in Liverpool, but I may get chance to blog on Sunday (Unless I convince Katie to let me put the tree up early) How are you getting on with your WIPvember goals? I’m heading over to Instagram right now. I think I’ve got some catching up to do!

Lots of love to you all, and I hope you’re having a nice weekend with plenty of crocheting and knitting. (Or any other craft!)

Love Charlie, Xx

So it’s time to show you what projects I’ll be working on throughout #WIPvember. If you’re wondering what I’m going on about click here to read a blog post all about this finish along. And if you do know what I’m on about, but you’re not sure how to choose your goals, then go and have a read through my previous blog post which offers a bit of advice on how to choose your WIPs and set your goals.

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First I thought it would be fun to show you ALL of my WIPs. I’ve linked to Ravelry so if you’re interested you can go and have a look at the patterns and designers. All projects are crocheted unless specified otherwise.

Cosy Stripe Blanket by Lucy at Attic 24
Granny Square Blanket
Stripey Blanket
Criss Cross Shawl by Fay Dashper-Hughes
~~Kintted Christmas Socks (Basic socks by Christine Perry)~~ [Finished this morning. Whoop!]
Simple knitted shawl by Jane Hunter
Woodland Blanket by Lucy at Attic 24
Countryside flower blanket by Emma Haughton
Beautiful Shells Blanket by Lahoma Jayne Nelly
Wedding decorations
Bryggen Norwegian Embroidery
Gran’s Spring Embroidery
Lake district embroidery
Knitted Candy cane socks by Christine Perry

I know that seems a lot (and it is) but I don’t tend to worry about the cross stitch WIPs as I only work on those in spring and summer, or whenever I fancy. They don’t stress me out in any way. Which leaves 10 WIPs as I finished Katie’s Christmas socks this morning. I’m contemplating frogging the stripey blanket as this was started for a wedding blanket – which I’m not doing anymore, and making a blanket using htr stitches is going to take forever! Maybe I can make a bag or something? The other 3 blankets have been put away for my next finish-along, and I can make some ‘proper’ progress on these next year when I don’t have so many WIPs. January has been designated for Wedding decorations, so I won’t worry about that until after Christmas.

Here are projects, gifts and commissions that I need to get started and finished ASAP:-

Amigurumi Ginger cat by Kendra Szpila
Mustard Treasure Island Shawl by Hannah Siegmund
Burgundy Treasure Island Shawl by Hannah Siegmund
Ragdoll Mermaid by Spin a Yarn Crochet

Due to the fact that I have to get a few commissions and gifts done before Christmas, I will be splitting my WIPvember goals into finishing existing WIPs, and it is fundamental that I start another couple of new projects to get them finished in time for Christmas Day.

With that in mind, here is my #WIPvember WIP list…

I want to get both blankets finished so they’re out of the way. Both are so close, but I may not finish the cosy stripe blanket. I don’t want to set un-achievable goals, so I am setting myself the target of achieving 2 colour repeats and I will re-evaluate whether I intend to finish it once I reach this point. I think this will take the first two and a half weeks of #WIPvember.

I intend on working on the Mustard Treasure Island shawl and Candy Cane socks on my lunch breaks as these are small and easy projects – and once I have the blanket out of the way I can put more time towards these two.

Week 3 & 4 are designated to the Criss Cross shawl as this needs my full concentration. For some reason I haven’t enjoyed this project half as much as I should have done (which is why it has been left in the WIP pile for so long) I think it is the counting that I dread – I’m a perfectionist which means that I am counting each and every row to make sure I’m in the right place. But when I actually get going on this, I know I can make good progress when my ‘head is in the game’. I absolutely love the shawl and the Harvest Hues yarn from John Arbon I’m using, and I can’t wait for it to be finished. I just keep putting it off.

Finally, I need to start the Ginger cat commission. I aim to get the arms and legs made so I can make the body & head in the first week of December. If I get more made than my goal then I’ll be very happy 🙂

Anyway, that’s my WIP list. Make sure you share your own WIP lists on Instagram so we can see what you’re making. Use the hashtag #WIPvember. Save the below image so you can overwrite your own lists and share on your feed and in your stories. I can’t wait to see what you’ll all be working on. Remember to have fun!