WIP Wednesday #1

Another thing I aim to do this year is to keep up with this blog a lot more than I have the in the past couple of years.  The idea of WIP Wednesday is certainly not new, but I have never played along, mainly because I felt it too difficult to do when I am working during the week.  You see I hate my photos from late at night, which is usually the only chance I get midweek.  But that perfectionism is crippling me, and driving me away from blogging, and I do want to blog! I enjoy looking back over past entries, and have been disappointed that I haven't documented recent times.  So if you can put up with average flash photography, then I will try to ignore it too, and post every Wednesday about something I am working on.  

My other problem with WIP Wednesdays is that I often don't have much to show for the week especially when life gets busy, but hey, if I don't have much, I will pull something out of hiding, and it might give me that push to do a bit more work on it.  I can do this!  To keep me accountable, I am joining the WIP Wednesday linky party over at FreshlyPieced.

This week I was hoping to show you a sparkly rainbow knit in progress, using my much loved Wooltopia Sparkle DK from last year's Every Little Girl's Dream Rainbow Gradient Club.  Unfortunately though, It isn't behaving for me.  First I tried to turn it into a Tropical Fish Skirt (by Elena Nodel), that I know Miss M would absolutely LOVE, but I got to the third of the way mark, and found I had already used half of the 200g of yarn!  So I checked the yardage only to find I had highlighted the wrong size for the yardage on my pattern in my haste to cast on!  I love using my iPad to highlight patterns, and mark where I am up to, but it looks like I didn't check, and check again before I cast on.

Too sad to rip it all out straight away, I decided to knit from the other end of the ball.  I put a feeler out on Ravelry to hear some suggestions for what WOULD work for a size 6 little girl (yes, Miss just-turned-4 is definitely well into size 6!) with a graidient, Georgie Hallam's Milo came up, but that's how I used my last gradient, so I wanted to try something different.  It needed to be relatively sleeveless for a top to get the gradient to work, and someone suggested a very new and pretty pattern, that would be such a sweet little summer tank.  It is called Nina, by Rachel Evans, which also has two dress options included in the pattern.

Unfortunately, that pattern splits after the sleeve cast off, so the fronts and back are worked separately for a little bit.  I thought I might get away with it, but it seems that the gradient has decided to start to change just as IU began to work the separate right front.  So by the time I have done the back, it will be on the purple when I get to the left front.  The yarn is too gorgeous to snip for working separate bits, and while it might not look too bad if I put the right front over the left instead of the other way, it won't do the gradient justice.  So we are back to square 1 - pattern selection!  But before I go hunting, let me show you the beautiful sparkles!

I am now thinking something a little plainer - like the Cyclades vest (by Elena Nodel) - might be a better option. I couls also knit a cowl or something for me, but I got a cute little matching rainbow hairclip with the yarn, so I would love to see the yarn and clip in an outfit together some time soon.  But it has put me off knitting for a bit with all this ripping back.  Good thing I have the January Lucky Stars BOM to take my mind off it in the meantime!

I spent ages playing around with colours last night, and finally decided to just jump in and go with it.  I wasn't sure about the orage, but it isn't as bright as what this picture shows,so we'll see how it goes.  I can always switch it out with green, or red in some of the other blocks and give them all a try.  My main colours are the blue, turquoise, pale grey and white.  I want this to be a spare quilt for when we have visitors, and possibly used in the boy's room on his trundle, so I wanted to use lots of blue and keep it fairly unisex.  So far I have only managed half of the block.  But I have been working on Maddy's quilt, and my Blockapalooza quilt as I mentioned in my last post, so there has been a lot of sewing going on this week.