Happy New Year!

The knitting continues; the designing is less further along.

I think I forgot to mention earlier that I started in on a pair of Carousel socks using some yarn I bought a number of months ago. So far, so good, although I tried to substitute a different heel and it didn't work very well, so I ripped it out:

I'm either going to try again but with more stitches to start, or I'm going to see if I can sub in Lynn Hershberger's Crystal heel, which Carin often talks about in glowing terms.

And I finished up DD2's piggy mittens really quickly last Saturday:

She says they're very warm and protect her hands well when she's playing outside in the snow - mission accomplished! (Fistpump.)

The first set of purple socks for DD2 and my Bauble shawl are both coming along great, although I have no pictures to show yet.

The socks are actually done, but I'm not going to weave in the ends until I've got all three pairs done - if it turns out I made the legs of this pair too long to do the same for the other two pairs without running out of yarn, I don't want to have to unpick woven-in ends to give myself more yarn.

As for the shawl, I'm almost halfway up the last set of charts, which is great, because it's really starting to become tedious. (Nothing against the pattern, which is lovely; but this is just the way of triangular shawls which get bigger as you go on.)

Design-wise, this week I blocked a sample piece that I was worried I would have to rip out and begin all over again with smaller needles for the edges, but to my delight, it blocked out exactly as I had hoped, so I will be weaving in the ends, photographing it, and sending it off to the yarn company very soon!

I've also ordered the yarn I need to begin trying out my design idea for my cousin's upcoming baby. Very excited about this one, although slightly panicked, as I need to finish it within two months in order for it to be ready by the shower in March.

But in good news on the designing front, I'll be posting about a couple of new things in the next week or so - stay tuned!