WIP Wednesday - actual progress!

I've actually made progress on things this week!

Ok, so I'm lazy. This is Sunday's picture. I haven't taken a new one.

Jane Austen Shawl is motoring along nicely. I can work on it almost without looking, which is a real step up for me in terms of crochet skill. I'm loving everything about this project; the colour, the feel of the yummy alpaca/silk yarn, the speed it works up, everything. Yesterday evening I ran out of my first skein, halfway through the 23rd row (out of 32). The second skein isn't wound yet and I'm not sure I've got the time to do it in the next few days, so this one may be taking a seat on the back burner for a little while.

Again with the laziness, this is an old progress shot too. Sorry.

My Easy Lace Stole is actually going really well. It sat unworked for some time, as it was my go-to knit for roleplay night and we haven't roleplayed in a few weeks as people have been on the other side of the world (damn them, and their holidays!). But this week I picked it back up, and surprised myself with the ease at which I got back into the rhythm of knitting it. I know the pattern off by heart, can recognise just by looking at it which row I'm on (although I am not trusting that entirely, and keeping on with my row counter just to make sure). It's now 10 inches long and growing fast.

And a third really lazy photo in a row! Go laziness!

Victorian Scarf could be considered finished, as the pattern says to do 18 repeats, which I have done. But it seems a bit short, so I've decided to keep going for a little while. I only used 30g out of the 50g ball, so I've got plenty of spare yarn to just keep on going until I think it's long enough. It only just wraps around my neck as it is (36" long, unblocked), so I want it longer. I'm not sure how much it will grow when blocked either, as it's a cotton/acrylic blend. Mostly I think it will just even out and get a bit wider, so knitting it longer has to be the only answer.

Now, on to exciting things. I mentioned on Sunday that one of the reasons I didn't instantly dive back into my existing WIPs once I'd finished reading A Dance With Dragons was because I started designing my own intarsia charts for the various heraldic devices of the major noble houses. I have shared some sneak previews of my initial graph paper charts on Twitter this week, but I doubt all of you will have seen that. So, here's a couple of snaps (apologies for poor quality, they are iPhone photos):

House Tully and House Stark

House Lannister and House Baratheon

For some of the houses, I've been able to find images already charted that I've used for inspiration, but the rest of them have been designed from scratch (the House Greyjoy kraken was a bit of a challenge, as was the House Targaryen three-headed dragon). The charts are all done, and I've got a swatch on the go where I'm testing my gauge, measurements and the chart for the name STARK.

I've not done any intarsia work before, so this is going to be a rather exciting experiment. I'm going to do the blanket in Stylecraft Special DK acrylic as it's cheap and comes in a startling array of colours. I need 11 different colours to do this, and I've already picked them out from the Stylecraft range. Next step will be ordering the yarn, and testing out the charts for real.

I've also downloaded some free cross-stitch charting software, to help me generate colour charts for ease of working. If it all works out, I'm hoping to write up the patterns properly and upload them to Ravelry. Although, because of the sheer amount of work involved, I don't think these will be free patterns.

For more WIPs (with more up-to-date photos!), head on over to Tami's!