Diagonal squares blanket C7

A while ago I finished one of my bus knitting blankets.  I did it in my usual garter stitch diagonal pattern.  It is so good for knitting on the bus because it does not require any counting, and you don't even need to look at it.  I increase/decrease at the beginning of every row to make it even easier.  This does mean that the squares end up slightly skewed, but the skewness disappears when you join them.



For this blanket I unravelled four charity shop sweaters:

A Gazman's man's sweater in a nice olive colour.

A grey Eddie Bauer sweater in garter stitch.  The yarn looked like shetland but it was quite different unravelled.  It was thicker than the others, so it produced fewer squares.








A Jigsaw polo neck in dark brown.  I can't find a picture of this one now.

An unlabelled sweater in mole colour.  This was also on the thick side, but there was plenty of yarn, and it was very pleasant to work with.

I started knitting this in February 2010 and completed it in September 2012.  It took a long time because I did some bus crochet in between.  I thought about joining the squares by doing three needle bind off, but it seemed too much effort for a not particularly nice blanket, so I crocheted the squares together using slip stitch.  As edging I did one row double crochet and one row crab stitch.

The blanket ended up shorter than a full size single blanket, because I ran out of wool, and, with a yarn store full of yarn, I did not want to buy another sweater for unravelling.  I had fun arranging the squares.  I stuck to my first attempt, because otherwise I would never make up my mind.  On the whole I'm pleased with it.  I like the colours, and it feels pleasant, being 100 per cent wool.

And if you like exposed seams you can use the reverse side.

The next blanket

Note:  I am having trouble adding pictures to this post.  I'll publish the text and hope that Blogger will be more amenable later.  Now all done.

Along with my blogging my knitting has slowed down.  It is frustrating.  I don't know how I spend my time differently, but I just don't sit down to knit so often or for any length of time.  I would like to do more knitting.  I keep buying yarn, so the yarn store is growing bigger, and it is stressful to think about all the yarn I plan to knit and all the ideas of projects that I have in mind.

 
Blanket #151 took nearly twice as long as other standard blanket.  And this was even though it was in my favourite dark colours and in a tight tension with DK weight yarn.  To make it interesting for myself I added a strand of Noro Kureyon Sockyarn, bought at half price, in similar shades but with added bright green and light beige sections.  These will stand out for people who don't know what they are but it pleases me.



I unravelled this Marilyn Moore hand knitted sweater.  The yarn is mainly wool, two 4 ply strands together or, in case of the brown boucle, three, with a little bit of silk and nylon.  It was OK to unravel although it had a lot more knots than strictly necessary.  I cut ruthlessly.  It gave me a lot more short lengths, admittedly of nice yarn, but it will take years to finish it.  The colours are good too, except that I have decided that I want to stop knitting red.  There are a lot of red hand knitted garments in charity shops, so I tell myself - that's red, don't buy it.

The second sweater was a Marks and Spencer bright red cashmere sweater.  This is one of the ones I bought for £9 when they sold cashmere at low prices in sales.  I have several that I got for £5, too.  M&S no longer sell cashmere so cheaply, and cashmere in charity shops is often shrunken so difficult to unravel.  I like adding a thin strand of cashmere.  Sometimes it is noticeable, sometimes it isn't.  It is always easy to unravel, and it doesn't matter if the thin strand breaks.

In blanket #150 there were a lot of ends to be fastened.  I don't mind because I enjoy it but it takes a long time.  It is a very relaxing activity.  I will show the crocheted edge as well.