Keeping Track

A place where I can keep track of all of my knitting / crocheting progress. I take horrible pictures but I do my best!

[silas-knits]

2026 Knitting Plans

I know it’s 3 months in to 2026, but I’ve finally got all my knitting plans laid out.

My goal is to knit one thing per month, and so far I’m on track.

Finished Objects

Sunset Cardigan (January project)

Rumble Raglan (February project)

Knit a longer body for my Mika tee (March project). No pic bc it was just adjusting an already finished object.

Beltane Sweater (March project)

Current WIPs

~This is for everything that I’m either actively knitting, or has already been knit and just needs modifications. I’m a monogamous knitter, so the star is my active WIP.

⚝ Helix Crop Top // I have this lovely green cashmere blend I want to use for this one.

New sleeves for my Love Magick sweater: I found the huge bell sleeves to be impractical, and they pulled the sweater out of shape. So I’m planning on knitting fitted sleeves with a slight flare at the end that can cover my hands maybe?

1 (one) Ravenlight Mitt: I lost one last year ;-; so I’m just reknitting it.

To Knit, Have Yarn

~In no particular order…

Umbra Top // I have this lion brand black bamboo cone yarn, although I may end up using a different one. The pattern calls for yarn with a stretch to it, and bamboo usually doesn’t stretch too much. I actually planned to use this bamboo yarn for so many projects right now that it will work itself out eventually lol.

Sara Pullover // Also planned for the LB bamboo cone yarn, although I also like the idea of doing this in a fun color, or maybe a grey or something.

Sporti Shrug & Tank // planned for the LB cone yarn. Can you tell I was inspired by transitional seasons? lol.

Camisole No 5 // I have ritual dye’s yarn in the colorway “loam” for this. I may not end up knitting it just bc I can’t tell if I can de-feminize it lol (I prefer androgynous-femininity personally).

Summer Secret Crop // I have ritual dye’s yarn in the colorway “sugar maple” for this project.

Luna Tee // Planning on doing long or 3/4 sleeves. I have boss kitty yarn in the colorway “clockwork” for this one.

No pattern for this one: I started a free-hand crochet overskirt.

Planned Knits, Need Yarn

I’m currently on a yarn buying sabbatical, but I like to dream about new projects anyway

Cargill Sweater // I’ve been struggling to figure out what color I want to knit this in. Mauve? Gray? I think it will come to me when I find the yarn.

Soufflé // Planinng on doing 3/4 sleeves, black baby alpaca yarn?

Diaphanous Raglan // I’ve knit this before, but unfortunately it got ruined. Again, not sure what color I want to use yet. Maybe a dark red?

Curio Collar // Planning on a purplish-grey with a black picot edge detail.

Hardly Harness // Want to make this for pride. “Dyke” in pink letters and maybe a gray background? This is on hiatus bc I’m kind of questioning if I’m even allo-anything any more.

Gelly Cube Cardigan // Another planned project where idk what color I want to make it. Right now the current thought is a sparkly black, but kind of like the idea of a fluorescent lime green with purple details… We’ll see what yarn comes my way for this one.

Banana Socks // I want to knit these in premier yarn’s fruits sock in the banana color way. Just think it would be cute.

Aerie Cardigan // planning on doing this with black mohair held with charcoal.

Scrap Projects

Ongoing projects as I collect scraps from all of my other projects.

Anthology Throw

Musselburgh

I also have a few accessories queued up, but I’ve been in a sweater / tops knitting mood, so it’s less likely I’ll get to those.

[emilysidhe]

Knitting finished as of last night! Still need to weave in a few ends, wash, and block.

Was aiming for 48” x 60”, came out 39” x 60” so far, but I’m hoping to be able to block it to a little wider and I’m ok losing a few inches of length for that

[emilysidhe]

Thank you so much for all the nice things everyone has said about this blanket! Unfortunately, I do not have a pattern, so much as I have several patterns and some back-of-the-napkin style math notes that won’t make sense to anyone but me - but I do have a picture of this planning piece (since frogged to reuse the yarn in the blanket itself.)

As a few people in the notes pointed out, the dragon pattern is Tahesha the Dragoness by Ina Wendrock

Tahesha the dragon (ess) pattern by Ina Wendrock

Skill level: Advanced cable knit / Zopfmuster für Fortgeschrittene

But it's on a plain reverse stockinette background, and I wanted this as part of a complex cable afghan. It's going to be a wedding gift for two friends in my DnD group, so I knew I wanted it big enough that two people could reasonably share it while watching TV together on a couch, and for a dragon to still be visible when folded and draped over the back of a couch or chair, in case that's how they store it. So I knew I was committing myself to knitting 5 dragons (one in the center and one in each of the four corners), and figuring out myself how to plop the dragon in to a larger cable blanket pattern.

Back in November, I bought the dragon pattern and knit a test version of it so I could see how it worked and measure the dimensions. (You can see from the curled up edges that I did this before I found the part in the pattern notes where Ina Wendrock helpfully informs us that the dragon is knit over 45 initial stitches, to help us add it to our own projects, but ah well.) Then I started trying to figure out the other cables.

I knew I wanted some traditional cables so that it had an heirloom look to it (but with dragons), but I thought that the dragons would look too out of place if everything else looked copy-pasted from a classic fisherman’s sweater. Fortunately, there are a number of knitting designers right now doing cool things with trying to make cables that resemble Celtic knot motifs, so I went to the public library and borrowed a bunch of cable knitting books and started bookmarking what I liked. My favorite patterns were all coming from this book:

Mention the phrase ?cable knitting,? and most people?knitters and non-knitters alike?envision textured ropes, twists, and braids winding up

Which looks like it's out of print now, but wasn't in December and I was able to ask for and receive it for Christmas. (Designer Melissa Leapman's ravelry store is here in case anyone wants to check it out):

I narrowed my bookmarked cables down to patterns that had 1) an odd number of stitches; 2) a central "crossover" cable in multiple parts of the pattern so that I could "open" it up to create the medallions that the dragons would sit in; and 3) a stitchcount of less than 45, by enough that I'd have room to drop a traditional cable on either side. My favorite two would then be the center cables for the central dragon panel and the left & right dragon panels (when I wasn't doing the dragons), and then I decided on a very simple c4b twist between the panels and a tight 5-rib cable braid on the edges. I loved the first two patterns from the book that I tested and didn't have to try any of my runner-up bookmarks - but if you zoom in on the picture, you can see that for the traditional cables around the Melissa Leapman cable for the center panel, I tried and discarded a honeycomb cable and an Xs and Os variant before deciding on the one that I'm not actually sure of the name of that made it into the final pattern. For the side panels, I had thought it might be nice to incorporate a hearts cable since it was for a wedding blanket. I'm not sure how traditional these heart cables are, but I've seen them unattributed in more than one published pattern from different sources, and they're published in a number of cable pattern guides online. They worked next to the Melissa Leapman cable I wanted for the side panels, so they went in the pattern without me trying anything else.

While practicing the dragon cable, I had noticed that many of the cables started with an increase, so on the back of one of my chart print-outs, I graphed a rough plan for what I had decided to put where in terms of the traditional and Leapman cables that would go around the dragons, and numbered out the stitches if I worked the first cables in each pattern as increases instead of cables to mimic the start of the dragons. Then I added up the total number of stitches and cast on, and it worked surprisingly well! After completing one repeat of the side-panel central cables, I started "opening" up the circles where the dragon would be through improvisation (the left and right panels that were parallel always matched each other because I was doing the same thing in each row - other than that, I wound up doing it slightly differently every time, and that was ok. They look the same enough.)

I had planned to either leave it un-bordered or add the full mitered border that Ina Wendrock (who designed the dragon pattern) has on her store depending on how it worked up, but after I'd knit enough to see what it looked like, I decided that the mitered border was overkill, but it did need something, so when I finally got to the end I did an I-chord bind-off and then went back and picked up stitches along the cast-on to do an I-chord bind-off there too. If I had it to do over again, I might have done a folded hem on each side instead, but we'll see how the I-chord blocks.

So, that's how you make the dragon blanket. Either get the patterns I mentioned and try to duplicate, or just buy the dragon and add your favorite cables for the rest!

[Sorry I'm not more help, but I cannot stress enough - I did not write any of this down as I went.]

[[For the patterns that were from the Continuous Cables book, I used panel 10 from page 136 for the center and panel 27 from page 146 for the sides]]

[emilysidhe]

It’s blocked! The dragons came out so nicely after blocking, and you can see the hearts better.

(DVD for scale)

[silas-knits]

Helix crop finished!

No mods to the pattern.

[silas-knits]

Cables for this month’s knit 😊 I was excited for this pattern until I remembered how slow cables are to knit 😭 luckily it’s a sleeveless piece, so that should save me some time.

[silas-knits]

Beltane sweater all done! Technically reversible? The cast on amount was tiiiiny, so I knit flat until I had 80st, then joined to work in the round. It shrank a bit more in the dryer than I had intended (forgot about it 😥) but it’s super wash wool, so getting it wet again should help stretch it out a bit.

Also added bust shaping. Also also added a purl at the side seams to give it a little structure.

More details on my ravelry.

[silas-knits]

Oh 😭😭😭😭

[im-fckn-threaded]

Amedeo Cardigan by Johanna Gehrisch. Hobbii x PicaPau 8/7 in Green No. 26.

[silas-knits]

Rumble raglan is all done!

I hate knitting colorwork, so this took me close to a year lol. No mods made to the pattern this time.

[silas-knits]

All ends finally woven in 😩😩😩 I usually weave in as I go, but I was having such a hard time with tension that I decided- for better or worse- that I needed to just do it all at the end.

Now to block it ✌️

[createmesanity]

Unique experience: knitting a sweater with your cat on it and having to double check to make sure that you’re about knit the eye on the correct side of the face

pattern: nocturnal jumper by saskie & co.

[createmesanity]

Purl has been knit (mostly)

[silas-knits]

Finally got this cardigan all re-knit! I felted the last one 😭 sized up to a size 3 and I actually like it better than last time.

I keep organized notes on my ravelry page- same u/n- for those interested, although this project was pretty straightforward. No mods needed

Don’t forget my siiiiick fuckin buttons;

[silas-knits]

Got these cool buttons for this cardigan. It’s currently still a bit wet, but this is my first project of 2026!

[silas-knits]

New year, new hat.

Pattern is a free pattern: Jason’s Cashmere Hat. Yarn is Plymouth’s yarn Galway in black and an unknown alpaca mohair held together. Only mod I made was one less cable in the main section and only doing ssk’s in the final two decreases rows so all the stitches would lean the same way. It’s still big on me 😥 me and my tiny head. But I think after a wash and maybe doing a quick blast in the dryer, it may condense a bit. Either way, it will keep me warm this winter.

While this was ostensibly an easy knit, both my ribbing AND my main needle had either a notch or a split in the tip of one side, so that was not fun :’)

[solianapaeris]

Finished project for the week 🧶

[silas-knits]

Finished my love magick sweater last week! It’s hard to get good pics with these crazy sleeves lol

as much as I love the drama, I think I might go back and knit the sleeves to be more fitted after the Halloween season. Right now, it’s a rather impractical although very pretty knit. But I did run out of yarn while knitting the body, and I think I also want a longer lace section for the body as well as a stretchier bind off; as of right now, the lace section there is a bit indistinct.

(in some photos, my woven ends have made their way to the outside of the fabric. This is bc the fabric was still a bit wet, and has since been fixed)

[silas-knits]

I’ve been in a bit of a knitting funk lately (busy and tired bc of life, basically), but I did finally split for sleeves on my rumble raglan!

[silas-knits]

Finished my Mika Tee! If this looks familiar, it’s bc I have knit it before, I just don’t like the color of the other one any more. Even back then, I knew I wanted this top in black.

Yarn: Madeline Tosh Lunar. This is technically a lace weight yarn, but I was able to get gauge. The only thing that is different vs the fingering weight version is that this top is a bit more airy and requires a camisole underneath. But this yarn is so, so soft and luxurious- such a lovely drape, too!

Pattern: nice and clear. I could recommend this for a confident beginner who has experience with short rows, casting on mid-project, and increases/decreases.

Pattern modifications: added 2 extra stitches to each sleeve and decreased a bit less. I have some muscles (💪 😤 lol) that didn’t quite fit in the sleeves of the vanilla pattern. Also added waist shaping but I did it crazy style- I think I was decreasing every 5 rows, then every 4 rows, then took a break from decreasing and then decreased every 3 rows lol. I tried this on a lot to see how and where I wanted it to come in. I also added a faux seam by adding a single purl stitch at the sides. This meant I had to cast on an odd number after splitting for the sleeves. I like this detail and will probably add it to all of my tops from now on; it really added some structure.