The next blanket

Blanket #153 is in one of my favourite colour combinations, pink/blue/lavender.  It is in DK weight, and a pleasure to knit.  I'm so behind with this blog that I have in fact finished knitting it, and started on #154, but that belongs to another entry.

For this blanket I unravelled an unremarkable Marks and Spencer wool angora blend striped sweater.  I bought it cheaply in a sale quite a few years ago, with the intention of ultimately umpicking it, although I did wear it several times.  It was comfortable and I liked the buttoned poloneck.  It was easy to unravel and the different colours are useful.  The yarn is soft and a bit too thick to be treated as 4 ply.

The second garment came from a charity shop.  The pattern came from Rowan Magazine 39 - Martin Storey's Crinkle.  It did have the ribbon along the front edges when I bought it, but I thought it silly so I removed it.  I wore this several summers, and it was comfortable, without the ribbon.  The knitting was not so expertly done; one front was longer than the other, and the edging a bit awkward.  But then I have never been fond of Martin's patterns.  They don't look as if they would fit me, so I was surprised that to find that this was one of his.  I thought the cyclamen colour of Rowan's Cotton Glace a bit garish, but unravelled it comes to its own, and it looks very nice in the blanket.

My yarn diet is going fine, or was going fine.  I manage not to buy yarn not on my list of allowed yarn.  The total in the yarn store went down in February, because I finished the chevron blanket then.  I did buy yarn, my favourite Rowan Summer Tweed, for a project I have been promising myself for several years.  March was more difficult.  Not only did I spend the month unpicking the next garment for blanket #154, instead of finishing the blanket I had planned, but I won wool in a prize draw in Knitting magazine, one whole kilo!  The parcel arrived unexpectedly, and I was very pleased, but it did not help my yarn diet.  And I bought something else too, an impulse addition to my list of allowed yarn.