On (and off) the needles No. 3

In my last post, having been away for a while, I forgot all the things I had been doing and completely neglected to say I had taken part in the 5 Shawls in 5 Days challenge from Aroha Knits which took place and the end of March. You can check out all the fun with the #5shawls5days tag on Instagram.

The title of the challenge tells you what it was, and it was really fun to explore different methods of shawl construction. Of course there are many more, but I think Frenchie (of Aroha Knits) chose 5 which really cover a broad range of styles. And it was a good use of some bits of left over yarn - I went for multicoloured/self-striping.

Overall I was proud of what I achieved, but I definitely struggled with one or two, and I had my favourites.....

This is the whole collection once I had done them all:

Clockwise(-ish) from top left: Half-Pi shawl, square shawl, crescent shawl, asymmetric triangular shawl and triangular shawl.

You can probably see from those pictures that the odd one out, in terms of shape, is the Half-Pi....it looked a little better when it was still wet. But even then I didn't have the right shape - it's certainly the case that this needs severe blocking and I am looking forward to knitting this another time and then blocking properly with wires (or needles) as I really like the overall effect of this design....

My favourite overall design was definitely the crescent shawl - it's just such a lovely shape, and it is easy to achieve, which is great! I also love that the body of the shawl is one canvas to "work" on, no spine, so one can imagine really beautiful designs across it, and the colour gradient effect I got from the yarn I was using looks great too!

SO...that is my "off needle" news (if a bit belated). "On the needles" I still have my sweater from last week, and I have decided I'd like it to be regular length rather than cropped (as the pattern calls for) so I am working on finishing the body....

The most exciting thing on my needles I am (sadly) not allowed to post any pictures of....but I can say that my yarn arrived from SweetGeorgia and it is of course so so so so lovely, and I am checking my gauge and will be casting on the sample very shortly! I am so happy to be working with them and I cannot wait to share more information with you once the pattern is closer to launch!

My final "on the needles" news is that I finally decided I needed to knit "proper" socks and so I have ordered myself 2, 2.5 and 2.75 mm circular needles so that I can! In the meantime I have just been having a play with a pair of 2.5 mm from a friend. And I guess news will follow about how I get a long with such small needles, and my adventures in sock-land!