WIP Wednesday

Next on the agenda is Works in Progress, wherein I'm supposed to talk about what I'm working on at the moment.  Whee!

I started the Belle Ruffle fingerless gloves, found them to be very engaging and uniquely constructed, and slowly  came to the realization that they were just going to be too darn small, and I don't have enough of the yarn I'm using to make them bigger.  OF COURSE it's a discontinued colorway.  I just don't have the heart right now to rip them out, nor to continue and keep them to give as a gift for someone with more femininely-sized hands.  At the moment I'm holding a tiny little grudge against all women with tiny little hands.

Someday, when I'm feeling less emotional about it, I'll try again with a different yarn.  Maybe.  They'll probably just make my arms look fat.

Bitter?  Me?

The ruffles were so much fun to make, too.

I have two more projects in process for my volunteer editing on Rav - the first being a lady-bug inspired doll dress.  I'm using scraps of Caron Simply Soft and Vanna's Choice instead of Red Heart yarn, and a smaller hook, so it should fit Heather pretty well even though it's designed for the chunkier American Girl dolls.  I just now realized that the first bits of red yarn I used were from the Scarlet colorway that I used for Ryan's Rooster Hat, and the rest is from the remnants of Laura's hat and scarf (still haven't sent them to her, need to get on that . . . ), which is Cranberry and a couple shades darker.  So for no reason at all the dress will have a bright red waistband.

The pattern doesn't give any clues as to how the back is supposed to be fastened.  I may just improvise some kind of button and loop.  Heather has enough hair that it won't make any real difference.

The other photo-adoption is Beth Ann Webber's Basic Amigurumi Doll.  So far we have the head, torso, and whites of the eyes.

I have no idea where this yarn came from or what it is, but it's probably some variety of Red Heart.  The doll is smaller than I thought, but that's okay because I'm not confident about the yarn holding out.  I went to Ben Franklin's to buy the animals eyes so I can finally finish the head, but I entirely forgot to check what size I needed, and as it turns out they only have them available in orange or brown.  I'd prefer green or blue (or purple or hazel), and while orange or brown wouldn't be terrible, I would then be stuck with two more sets of orange or brown eyes and no intention of ever using them.  I'll have to see if I have some plain black shank buttons instead.  The pattern calls for #8 perle cotton, which I'd never heard of before, and which Ben Franklin doesn't carry.  They have #5 and #3, but not 8.  A bit of googling suggested that it would be equivalent to #20 crochet thread, but as I don't care for this doll to have ecru eye whites, I just crocheted very tightly with #10.  She'll have big eyes.

And finally, a bit of fun stash-busting - the beginnings of a cat bed.  8 strands of yarn, one giant hook.  It's a bit of a pain, but the idea is so much fun that I don't mind.

Fortunately cats are color-blind.

On the non-knitting side of things, I actually got out of the house and accomplished some things today, so my self-esteem is a few notches higher.  Adding to that is the fact that I managed to shower for the first time in nearly a week.  Once I got into the shower, I wanted to stay for the rest of the day, too.  Ryan wouldn't have appreciated that much, though since I actually have some milk frozen now, he would have survived for a few hours.  

I've been very lazy about pumping.  It's a messy, mind-numbingly boring, uncomfortable business.  But if I plan on going back to work, or going anywhere without Silas, there must be milk for him.  It takes some of the convenience and affordability out of nursing, I tell you.

We're counting down the days until we have the go ahead to resume our favorite extracurricular activity.  That should improve my mood vastly.