These are my 2 current wip's - Portree from Rowan in Felted Tweed, the back is now finished and the front has just got the ribbing completed . The pattern is intuitive after the first couple of repeats and I'm pleased with how it's working out. I usually do fair isle way too tight so I'm really trying hard to loosen my tension for this, and so far so good. Blocking should smooth out any kinks. I'm not sure yet if Ill do the belt for this - I think I'll wait and see what it looks like without.

The socks are Rick from Sock Innovation - all of the patterns in this book are noteworthy and it was difficult to pick one; in the end I thought this would go well with the yarn I wanted to use - Natural Dye Studio blue faced leicester which has been in my stash for way too long. It's incredibly soft and quite loosely plied so it's a bit splitty, but I'll forgive it because I like it so much. The pattern is lace and twisted rib which swirls around the sock so I'm finding I need to re-arrange the stitches after each 4 row repeat. I've done a bit more work since I took the photo; I'm almost at the heel flap now.

Sissinghurst

I finished Sissinghurst a couple of weeks ago. I really enjoyed knitting this and I love the result. The yarn is Rowan pure wool 4ply in the colours depicted in the magazine, and I actually had at least one ball of each colour left over - that's a first for me with Rowan. Everything I've ever made from Rowan has always required me to go and buy extra, so this was a bonus.
The pattern looks more complicated than it is to work - slipped stitches on 2 of the 4 pattern rows give the illusion of fair isle but only one colour is used at a time; as the colour changes every 4th row there are masses of ends to weave in, but I did this at the end of each knitting session to keep things under some sort of control - I don't think I could've faced doing them all at the end. I made the smallest size - 32" - 34" - which turned out to be a good move as it blocked slightly larger than the expected finished measurements, so it fits quite well after all.
Currently knitting "Portree", another Rowan from their latest mag, and that's going well - I'll have piccies soon, along with Rick socks from Cookie A's "Sock Innovation". Both fit in with two personal goals for this year - to get better at colourwork and to better understand sock construction.