Two Blankets (and a Dishcloth)
I love finishing projects, don't you? It's like a load of stress just got lifted off my shoulders--what a rush!! Woohoo! Recently, I finished two big projects. One was the longest time I've ever taken on a knit project: over a decade! The other two were fairly quick, but one got rid of a skein of cotton yarn I've had hanging around for over a year, and the other one took up a LOT of room.
This feather-and-fan pattern was written out on a piece of notepaper and given to me by my Grandma, together with a pair of needles and the yarn. After I got two skeins in, I dropped a stitch and couldn't find it. I stuck it away, and let it sit for years. Last year I pulled it out again. I took it completely down, off the needles, and started over from scratch. I ended up being about a skein short, so I went on Ebay and managed to find a skein of the exact dye lot! That was nothing short of miraculous.
I found two additional skeins on Etsy of the same color so I could do the fringe. In November, Grandma sat me down and taught me how to do it properly. When I brought it to her last week, she said it passed inspection! Finally, it's over. I'm planning on entering it in the fair this year.
The second blanket is a new experience for me--an extremely bulky knit on size 50 (FIFTY!) needles. You would think knitting bulky would be really easy, but it was hard for me to get the correct tension on there. It's a very different feel! On the upside, the bulk of it was completed in a weekend.
I had another false start with this one. I cast on my stitches and knit a square pattern, but I had no idea how that would turn out. I measured my gauge, then started over. I also did a different method of joining the ends. Rather than knitting two strands together then weaving the ends in, I tied two knots then pulled them together. This video illustrates--it's the same type of yarn I used as well!
That saved the precious yarn, and also made it faster to join ends and finish. The knots are of no great consequence--while I wouldn't use that method for my other projects, it worked really nicely and the knots just blended into the pile. The simple stockinette stitch was all I needed--any variety would simply have been lost to the viewer, the scale is so huge.
Another thing--I finished it (just under 6' long, 4 1/2' wide) on the coldest day of the winter so far. It was a polar vortex, 24 degrees below zero with a wind chill making it seem like mid fifties below. On the sofa, I was incredibly cozy as I bound this thing off. It's like snuggling in a cloud! (And for the Hobby Lobby yarn on sale, it wasn't that expensive of an experience at all--roughly $65 for the materials, including the needles.)
I even had extra yarn left over, so I made a giant tassel for each corner, just to give it some pizazz. I didn't want to have to start over and add on the side, when it's really just perfect for snuggling on the couch. I made it as a commission for a college friend--I hope she agrees!
This feather-and-fan pattern was written out on a piece of notepaper and given to me by my Grandma, together with a pair of needles and the yarn. After I got two skeins in, I dropped a stitch and couldn't find it. I stuck it away, and let it sit for years. Last year I pulled it out again. I took it completely down, off the needles, and started over from scratch. I ended up being about a skein short, so I went on Ebay and managed to find a skein of the exact dye lot! That was nothing short of miraculous.
I found two additional skeins on Etsy of the same color so I could do the fringe. In November, Grandma sat me down and taught me how to do it properly. When I brought it to her last week, she said it passed inspection! Finally, it's over. I'm planning on entering it in the fair this year.
The second blanket is a new experience for me--an extremely bulky knit on size 50 (FIFTY!) needles. You would think knitting bulky would be really easy, but it was hard for me to get the correct tension on there. It's a very different feel! On the upside, the bulk of it was completed in a weekend.
I had another false start with this one. I cast on my stitches and knit a square pattern, but I had no idea how that would turn out. I measured my gauge, then started over. I also did a different method of joining the ends. Rather than knitting two strands together then weaving the ends in, I tied two knots then pulled them together. This video illustrates--it's the same type of yarn I used as well!
That saved the precious yarn, and also made it faster to join ends and finish. The knots are of no great consequence--while I wouldn't use that method for my other projects, it worked really nicely and the knots just blended into the pile. The simple stockinette stitch was all I needed--any variety would simply have been lost to the viewer, the scale is so huge.
Another thing--I finished it (just under 6' long, 4 1/2' wide) on the coldest day of the winter so far. It was a polar vortex, 24 degrees below zero with a wind chill making it seem like mid fifties below. On the sofa, I was incredibly cozy as I bound this thing off. It's like snuggling in a cloud! (And for the Hobby Lobby yarn on sale, it wasn't that expensive of an experience at all--roughly $65 for the materials, including the needles.)
I even had extra yarn left over, so I made a giant tassel for each corner, just to give it some pizazz. I didn't want to have to start over and add on the side, when it's really just perfect for snuggling on the couch. I made it as a commission for a college friend--I hope she agrees!
Lastly, I flipped out one of these little dishcloth-jobbies over the weekend. I like the waffle weave, because it seems to clean dishes better and stay nicer than a diagonal garter-stitch. It does have a tendency to shrink a bit, so that a square dishcloth sort of becomes short and squat. I tried to circumnavigate this a bit by adding on a couple extra rows. Probably not enough, but making a dishcloth that's rectangular to start just sort of goes against my grain. Total cost: I think .57 cents for the skein on clearance at Walmart? Peaches'n'Cream is the brand, 100% cotton. They're a first choice for my dishcloths anyway--I've never seen them for sale for more than a dollar per skein, and I can usually get three dishcloths out of two.
There you have it! I can't wait for more projects to be finished up--so I can start new ones, of course!
Comments
Post a Comment