Work in Progress Wednesday - 2/23/2011

The only one of last week's WIP that I actually managed to finish were the mittens - there are pictures here and the Ravelry page here.

Instead of tackling those other things, I got going on a two other projects that I need to do before I can send the patterns in for pattern testing, plus a third that is just for fun.

First, I've got my two amigurumi that are in development.

Manny Man-o-War, Third Draft of the Portuguese Man of War Amigurumi:
This is my closest to being done. For the amigurumi I'm designing for the Oceans (my undersea baseball team), I always do an "in uniform" and "out of uniform" version. This is the in uniform version, and it should be done tonight!

I tried to make his eyes look tough, but I think they turned out exactly the opposite. Ah well. Maybe I'll write that in to the story about him. :)

Sooper Sekrit Amigurumi WIP
It's really not much of a secret, since I've shared it a little on Ravelry and have a Ravelry project page up with the first draft, but it's secret on my blog so I thought I'd keep it that way.

Doesn't look like much of anything yet. :) Hope to have it done by the end of the week, and once I've got two version finished, it'll be ready to test the pattern and share it! For the second version, I decided just to pound it out in cheap materials, hence the boring black Red Heart...(I can't wait to finish using all the Red Heart in my stash - it's left over from a time when I cared less about what I used to make things, and was broke enough that Red Heart was all I could afford...)

Shawl
This is the WIP that I'm most excited about, but unfortunately cannot do any more work on until the supplies I ordered arrive. This is another one inspired by Nerd Wars over on Ravelry. This is supposed to be my entry in to the challenge called "A Bonding Experience," which is all about using different types of materials and discussing the challenges this involved. I had this idea to marry knowledge gleaned from my favorite craft (cross stitching) with this!

I don't want to spoil what it's going to show, but the idea was to give the white a shimmer by using Kreinik blending filament in silver and multi-colored. Blending filament is this awesome, thin, shiney thread used to make sections of cross stitch shimmer. It comes in all kinds of colors, but the projects I've done have mostly used gold, silver or multi-colored. It's working just how I hoped:

...unfortunately, I only have one spool of blending filament in the house (actually, I KNOW I have two, but I can't find the other, and anyway it goes with a specific cross stitch project - if I use it, I'll have to replace it), and I couldn't find any where local that carried the stuff (truly ridiculous) so I had to order it...and now I just have to twiddle my thumbs and wait for it to arrive. Very frustrating, because I really want to be working on this project! But there's nothing for it, I guess. :) This is another new direction for me, a shawl of my own design. I'm so glad I've joined Nerd Wars, because I'm meeting so many awesome geeks and also really stretching my boundaries and experimenting with new stuff in order to meet the challenges. :)

Want to see what other awesome stuff people are in the process of making this week? Check out Tami's Ami Blog and visit all of the other blogs participating in this week's WIP Wednesday!