Some beginnings...

Well, I've had a lot of ideas lately, & they've added up to starting three different projects, but as my crafting time is divided between these three projects, I have no idea when they'll be done! (Not to mention that there's a new set of Guild Wars over at Ravelry's Ankh-Morpork Knitter's Guild...) So I thought I'd share the works in progress.

At top is my lately-much-used basket of KnitPicks Swish DK superwash wool. I was inspired by Alice's Do You Dare to Wear Granny Square post to start my own granny square cowl. I decided to use her Grandala Square instead of a regular granny, though, extending it a bit to be the right size. (On a side note, my 9th-grader son has been studying geometry in school & decided to work-out the area of the whole Grandala, & then the areas of the circle in the middle & the square on the outside, just for fun. I wish I could do that...) I made green, blue, & purple squares, but have decided to wait on the rest (Alice used 7 squares for her cowl) until an order of additional colours of yarn comes in.

Also in the basket are one completed & one half-finished Bunny Nugget, which I found from following a link on Alice's blog to this blog.

These bunny nuggets are so cute, I just had to start making a rainbow of them for myself!

I did change the pattern, which has you make it on 3 double-pointed needles, bind-off the top of the head, knit the ears separately, then sew them on. I am a relentless fusser, & prefer to knit as much all at once as I can, rather than sew things up. So here's the orange one with the first ear still on the needle. First I made it on 2 circular needles because I prefer this technique (I used size 1 needles because I knit very loosely & this pattern calls for a firm gauge). I basically stopped where she has you bind-off, knit the first 3 stitches of the next round, put them & the last 3 from the other needle on a piece of yarn (you can see it there), do a 3-needle bind-off on the middle stitches, fudge the last bind-off so there are 3 stitches remaining on each needle, then continue around on 6 stitches for 15 rounds. After finishing the first ear, I pick up the 3 on each side on the 2 circular needles, plus one along the bound-off edge (which I knit together with the first stitch in the round) & knit the second ear the same.
Then I added button eyes,embroidered the nose, made the pom-pom tail, stuffed it, & sewed an overcast seam on the bottom. The bunny sits up because of the tail. I think I'll make the eyes with different buttons, so they have some personality :)

The third project is my next pair of lacy socks!

I am very psyched about these. I plugged the Vine Lace pattern from Barbara Walker's 2nd pattern treasury into my basic sock template (mentioned here) & I really like how it's coming out. One thing I'm discovering is how difficult it is to photograph lace knitting. When I got close (to see the pattern) with my flash camera, the flash made the picture washed-out, so I tried to use my iphone camera, but it's kind of dark. I'll keep experimenting, because this lace is so pretty! I'm using KnitPicks Stroll Tonal sock wool in Gypsy (which is on sale right now!) & I just really like it.

So much to do. I'll keep you posted as to my progress :)