The next knitted blanket

I keep on knitting even if I don't blog regularly.

My next blanket, #144, is red, several shades of red with bright red, rust, burgundy, orange and even a little bit of pink.  All mixed with brown, beige, green and grey.  Earlier I bought wool in charity shops regardless of colour.  Now I try to reject wool in colours I find difficult, particularly bright colours and white.  I am surprised to find how many knitted garments that I examine are knitted in shades of red.  I had no idea the colour was so popular, because it is not one of my favourites.  For blankets red is fine.  It is nice and cheerful.

This blanket is knitted in aran weight on 4.5mm needles.  It is quite thick because a lot of the red wool comes from picture sweaters from the 1990s, and a lot of them were pictures of flowers, red flowers.  The green thick wool comes from leaves.

I have a spread sheet, by date of purchase, of knitted garments in the wool store waiting to be unravelled, and now I pick the next one on the list, regardless of whether the colour suits the blanket in question.  The wool will get used sooner or later anyway.   Doing it systematically makes me feel I'm getting somewhere, and I like the randomness of not knowing which the next one will be.  (I don't cheat by peeking ahead.)

The next one for this blanket was blue, a nice pale blue DKNY silk cardigan.  The silk is quite thick and it feels nice.  I bought this cardigan very cheaply, and I wore it the first summer.  It was really comfortable.  I like the way the raglan sleeves were done.  It started with decreases from the armhole, but halfway just one increase at the shoulder line was done instead.  This cardigan was easy to unpick.  The seams came away like a dream, and for the rest it was just a question of pulling a thread.

The second garment was a Marks and Spencer cashmere polo neck sweater.  It may seem very laborious to unpick such thin yarn.  It is surprisingly strong, and I like the hint of softness it adds to the blankets.  I don't bother to fasten ends.  The yarn is mixed with other stronger ones, so I just overlap with the new end, and cut any stragglers when the blanket is finished.