Stitching Saturday: Finally finished

Remember that Log Cabin blanket I started, almost 2 years ago? Well, I finally finished it and gave it to my niece as a graduation present. I decided to give this to her because it was one of the projects that was blessed at the knitting retreat I went to last year. Thinking of the group of wonderful women praying over my quilt, embuing it with all their good wishes and hopeful thoughts, made me know it was the perfect gift to send her into the world with.

As it grew, I of course had to upgrade to longer circular needles - my 60 inch Addi Turbos comfortably held the last rows of this blanket, and they are really a dream to stitch with. Super light and turbo fast, just like they promise. :) There were SO MANY ENDS to weave in - and that took up a few evenings in front of the TV.



After my last update more than one year ago (above) it grew about 10 inches on each side. The last strips got longer and longer, eventually eating up grapefruit-sized balls of yarn for each strip! Something to keep in mind if you create a blanket like this that just keeps going and going.

This was all knit up with acrylic Love This Yarn, which was soft and wonderful, and all purchased at Hobby Lobby before their decision to dictate which types of birth control their female employees could have. I was so ticked off I haven't set foot in a Hobby Lobby store since. I still have quite a bit of Love This Yarn, but aside from using it up, I won't be replenishing my stash.

I have to say, I loved making this blanket - the bright colors brought me a lot of joy, and it was a hit everywhere I went. People seemed genuinely enamored with the colors and the design, and it was the perfect project to mindlessly knit when I needed to feel calm and grounded.

Amusingly enough, I even made it in the paper last year when I took my knitting to Shakespeare in the Park. Hilarious! :)

Stitching Saturday: blanket knitting progress

Yes, I've been very remiss in posting my crafting photos. I know it's been a whirlwind of cat posts lately. :) Anyhow, up above is the proof I am steadily crafting - here is the blanket I started at the end of last summer, that lay on my lap most of the unusually cold winter as I plugged away, knitting row after row of garter stitches.

There are colors I am more happy with, and others I am less happy with, but I find that the larger it gets, the less picky I am about how one color looks next to another. The beauty of something so varied is that your eye tends to blend it all together, anyway. I've gotten LOTS of compliments on the colors in this one.

It's also gotten so large it is hard to photograph - it covers the width of my full bed completely at this point. I think I'd still like to make it bigger - maybe Queen size. It's been great fun.



Here's a chevron baby blanket that's taken up the past week and a half of my knitting (pattern from Purl Soho). I'd say I'm about halfway done. It's a gift for an office mate, and I took it to her shower so she could approve the color choices. They got pretty rave reviews there, so overall I'm feeling a lot happier about my color choices, which is where I've always felt iffiest in knitting. :)

I love the chunky texture - it's the same Love This Yarn I'm using on the Log Cabin blanket, but I've knit it here with size 9 needles. I'd be tempted to knit up another version in a cotton yarn as a bath mat, because I bet it would feel awesomely squishy under your feet, but we'll see about that. I try to keep a balance with knitting and physical activity, as I put on a few pounds this winter I've been going to the gym to shake off. :)

Hope all is well with you and you are happily crafting! Anyone else knitting up blankets?

Knitting inspiration - quest for a blanket

I haven't been writing, but I have been knitting A LOT this past month. I went through many successive phases in my quest for a new knitting project, truth be told.

After washing my acrylic Vanna's Choice Dr. Who scarf, it became so dreamy soft that the whole unpleasant process was washed away in my mind. Knitting up a whole new scarf in wools just because I hated the acrylic seemed silly, and I just felt done with my Dr. Who knitting phase. :)

My new quest: Use my favorite cheap yarn - Love This Yarn - in a soft, squishy blanket. I vowed (sort of) I would not buy new yarn (if I could help it). :)

1. Chevron Blanket
First I fell in love with chevron blankets, like this gorgeous one by Purl Soho:


Purl Soho blanket pattern

But when I used Love This Yarn in this pattern I didn't love it so much. It wasn't very soft and fluffy in this texture. Thinking I'd done something wrong, I knit it up on larger needles, which helped somewhat, but the texture was still not as bouncy and fluffy as Garter stitch...


2. Missoni Inspired Chevron Blanket

Next, I found this gorgeous blanket pattern by Tangled Yarns:

Missoni Inspired Chevron Blanket pattern

I LOVED the gorgeous color variations and bold changes. I loved that it was striped. I loved that it was chevron. The crazy part of me loved that it was huge, and more complex than any knitting pattern I'd ever tried.

And I loved the beautiful variations on Ravelry like this version by POF:

POF's Missoni inspired chevron blanket on Ravelry

These colors make my heart sing. I love what she did with them. And of course the little girl is adorable, too.

The original pattern calls for the following colors, in Biggan Yarn:


I decided to try my own version in Love This Yarn - my colors would not be exact, but close. Using size 8 needles I cast on 241 stitches. 241 stitches! I quickly realized this pattern was too ambitious for my short-attention-span knitting. I practiced again and again - at one point I messed up my increases so my blanket began to hilariously shrink on one side. :) Also, it is stockinette, which means purling 241 stitches. Eek. But it was good practice purling, and I found a way to cope with it, although I started out with very sore hands.

Finally, I found peace with the whole process and knit my way up the first 3 color changes. And realized it was again, not as soft as I was questing for. Love This Yarn didn't feel or look very soft in Stockinette - and Stockinette brings out its Acrylic-y sheen. SO, another blanket experiment was unceremoniously unraveled. Sigh. No fault of the pattern, which is gorgeous!


3. Honeycomb Stroller Blanket

Next, I fell in love with a Honeycomb blanket. The original free pattern is rather plain, but people have done gorgeous things with it on Ravelry.

One of my favorites is this version by Duschinka:

Duschinka's Honeycomb Stroller Blanket on Ravelry

Best of all, this pattern is EASY. Like, incredibly easy. So I cast on 164 stitches and got to work with Love This Yarn. But guess what? The finished texture, and combination of Garter and Stockinette? Not the softness I crave. But I'm gonna finish the dang thing, anyway. And it's pretty - I'll have pictures soon. :)


4. Log Cabin Knitted Blanket

Last in my quest for a blanket pattern I found Log Cabin knitting. There are so many great tutorials out there, but the one that helped me most was this free pattern by Staci Perry. The pattern has links to video tutorials, and she walks you through every step in very clear and detailed way.

I fell in love with this Log Cabin blanket on Cozy Things:


The color placement may seem random, but my gut tells me that she has a very artistic way of creating color harmony -her sense of color is just wonderful. I'm aiming for something maybe half this size. I started up with the remainder of Love This Yarn in my stash, and it is finally, just as soft and squishy and happy as I hoped for. All of this research has made me promise myself to only knit Love This Yarn in garter stitch, ever. Pictures soon!