Red

I know I don't usually post on Saturdays.  Okay, I pretty much never post on Saturdays. I'm kind of irked that I've blown off the blog this month, though, especially since I need it to help me keep track of what I'm doing (i.e. how I've faked something).  And fine, first there was the frenzied shower knitting, then there was the week with meetings and assignments every day, then there were the days spent pulling life back together after the frenzied shower and meeting weeks.  Just because I know why it happened doesn't mean I like it.

I was made aware of this in particular last evening as I attempted to knit my way through Frozen - which, by the way, is the lamest thing Disney has come out with since Toy Story 3. ( It was the Pirate's movie night; he gets to pick the feature).  I picked up Knitting Rage and confounded myself when I reached the marker on the eyelet row I was working with a k2tog instead of a k1. KR being an improvisational piece, I just went with it.  The same pattern worked out for each of the 4 sections, so I decided to give up puzzling about it and call it a design feature.

Then I got to puzzle some more when I couldn't remember what I did next.  I was pretty sure it was the purl row for the garter ridge, except it was also an increase row and I didn't remember doing a pfb increase on the previous eyelet section.  Having just completely lapsed on the eyelet row, though, I bulled on forward only to find, when I compared the two eyelet sections, that I had indeed not done anything so complicated as purling and increasing on the same row. 

The rule for this blanket, then, is clearly Keep It Simple, Stupid (may need to rename the project, yes?).  Given how I 've been assuming complications, I evidently need to store the recipe somewhere.  I am, after all, going to be doing additional eyelet sections on this thing, not to mention future blankets.

All of which means you get an extra Saturday post.

Rectangle Blanket Recipe:

Math to figure out the difference desired between the length and width of the blanket. (This involves choosing yarn and needles.  A good person would swatch.  I am not a good person. Therefore I guess.)

Tunisian cast-on for the number of stitches set by the Math.

Knit first round.

Place markers for corners.  For reasons I'm not sure of, I started the project with kfb, place marker, kfb, so the first stitch of the row is actually the stitch before the first marker. I find myself cognitively dissonated by this every time I knit an increase row and may have to re-orient my mind so next time the increase before the first marker is the final one instead of the first one.

KFB on either side of each marker. Next time remember to try twisted yo or m1l and m1r increases.

Knit the first skein, increasing on alternate rows. 

Join next skein using Russian Join or Magic Knot.

Work eyelet sections  -
Knit an increase row. Purl the next row. Knit an increase row. K1 *yo, k2tog* to marker (or possibly K1 * yo, k2tog* to last stitch before marker, yo, k1), repeat for all four sections. Knit an increase row.  Purl next row. Knit 3 more rows - one increase, one even, one increase.  Repeat eyelet pattern. 

Return to stockinette knitting.

Which is as far as I've gotten. We'll see what happens next.

Pink

Good Heavens, how did it get to be this late in March? What have I been knitting?

Well, knitting Rage progresses.  I've added some eyelet rows to break up the stockinette a bit.  The jury is out on using the side-by-side kfb for the increases.  I'm starting to wish I had used twisted yarn overs.  I am not, however, so sorry that I'm going to rip back and begin again.  I'll just hope the note here reminds me when I go to knit the next in-the-rectangle blanket (and we know there will be a next one, don't we).

The Lord Protector's Blanket proceeds apace.  In fact, I have reached a major milestone.  I finished the last grey section.  One more skein of the navy and it's done.  I'm trying to forget the close inspection I did on the beginning section where it looks like I introduced a row or two from the odd lot skein.  If I did, that means I won't have enough yarn to make the ends match.  Although, come to think about it, I'd actually hit a similar snag in the knitting on the previous navy section, and the fudging I did there may stand me in good stead for this bit.

I'll write about them in more detail and with pictures another time.

Because then there was pink. I think I've noted in various places that I'm not a big fan of pink.  It's not my least favorite color - that dubious accolade might belong to orange.  Or maybe some shades of brown. It is not, however, ever the first color I would pick to knit anything from. For a gift, though? A gift for a bride-to-be?  Yeah, I'll suck it up for that. 

This particular young woman is quite dear to me.  Shopping from her registry was important.  Even 37 years later, I remember that I didn't get some of the things I really wanted and needed.  Shopping from a registry, though, seems so unimaginative.  I also remember that some of my most favorite and used gifts came from people who shopped off the registry. 

Anyway, duty done, I was casting about for a way to make the gift more, what? Personal?  Individual? Hand-made? And thought of my first Stitches and the felted oven mitts.  Mine have been in daily use for the last almost 7 years.  They are only now beginning to wear out.  There are thin places near the tips and if I'm not careful the heat from the pan penetrates. I have my two new skeins of Lamb's Pride Bulky in Blue Flannel, but I've been putting the knitting off because it involves dpn's and a thumb gusset, and a thumb (ever notice that there are no mittens on this Blog? Not one, much less a pair).  All that, and the original class was an all day class.  Six hours of knitting and I came home with one almost finished oven mitt.  Twelve hours to knit two?  For a shower on Saturday when this was Monday? And me without a skein of pink bulky, or even worsted, yarn in the stash and not a yarn store open.

Hoping that the felting craze was still on, I tried the two crafting giants.  I would like to take a moment here to report that apparently the felting craze is over.  Not a single skein of non-superwash, all wool at the one store.  The other did have real wool worsted, but the closest thing to the color I needed was a light pink/blue/purple heather. Beggar that I was at that point, I bought it.  Three skeins just to be safe.  Got it home, dug out my size 11 dpn's -- that I don't believe have been used since that first Stitches class -- and found I'd lost the pattern. Two copies of it, in fact, since there should have been the original from the class and the one I bought the year I contemplated making the oven mitts for Christmas gifts (I didn't, so there's no point going looking for the post).

All I can say at this point is, thank God for Ravelry.  I downloaded two or three free patterns and between those and the Blog posts from the original set, I've cobbled together a pattern that is at least a close relative.  I cast on, and here's the thing.  When you've been knitting for 7 or 8 years, you get better at it.  I had the first mitt finished, except for the thumb, and the second almost to the half way point by the time the Princess got in from work.

She took one look and got very quiet.  As a rule, this is not a good sign. Looking at them through her silence, I knew what she was trying to get her nerve up tactfully (since I was a bit wild-eyed at that point), trying to draw my attention to.  Pale pink/blue/purple heather is not this bride's shade of pink. 

The whole thing dragged to a halt while we considered our alternatives.  No place nearby carried Lamb's Pride Bulky.  That Tuesday, for me, was out for a yarn hunt anyway. The Princess, however, had gotten pretty invested in the idea, or at least in the idea of humoring the crazed look in my eye.  She stopped at Loopy after work and came home with four skeins of Cascade 220 in the perfect shade: 7805, Flamingo.

Compare that there on the right with the bit on the left. The Princess' silence becomes understandable, doesn't it.

I cast on Tuesday night.  Switched from the dpn's to a 16" circular almost immeditately, and finished the knitting Wednesday afternoon.

This with several corrections and rip-backs as I fine-tuned the pattern (Cascade 220 doubled isn't quite as thick as Lamb's Pride Bulky, so I had to adjust the stitch count. The first thumb came out looking like an onion.).

They felted down (two hot water wash/cold rinse cycles), but I never got a chance to take pictures.  You'll have to take my word.  Three dishcloths (pink,white and green) and two tawashi's (pink-and-green and green-and- blue), rolled up and attached to barbeque skewers made a kitchen utensil bouquet in a flour sifter vase.  No pictures of any of that either, though. Sorry. It was down to the wire knitting and frenzied day-of-the-event gift assembly.

Pink Yeti mittens.  I'm so proud.

The photos with the ruler are to help me the next time I have to reinvent these.  The mitts themselves, unfelted, measured about 12.5 inches (little longer than the ruler).  I held the Cascade 220 doubled to make up the bulky weight. Knit on Addi Turbo 16" US 11/8 mm needles, switching to bamboo dpn's for the tips and the thumbs.