The next blanket

 I am still knitting, and blanket #155 is proceeding.  This is in DK weight, in pale colours.  I have managed to restrict them to white, green and blue with some beige and greys.  There are a few darker shades among them, but the truth is that I am running low on lighter yarns.  In earlier blankets I tried to restrict the amount of white yarns, but now I use them for want of anything else.  I don't want to go darker.

The other thing about this blanket - and I noticed this when I did other knitting in pure wool - is that there is not sufficient wool in it.  There is more synthetic than I would like but to compensate there is alpaca, silk and mohair, and some nice cotton.  So the blanket itself feels comfortable, but it does not have a woolly feel.  Also, I am running low on double knitting weight yarns so there is more 4 ply doubled, and some of it is quite thin.  Still, it is a nice blanket.

The first knitted garment that I unravelled is a zipped short sleeved cardigan in Rowan Cotton Glace.  It is nicely knitted, and the zip is sewn in with care.  Personally I find adding zips to knits too dangerous to attempt, too difficult to get right.  The zip and the seams are sewn using sewing cotton.  It was fiddly to cut, but I managed it without cutting the yarn unnecessarily.  Otherwise it was easy to unravel.

I bought the second after I went to the Wool Show at Somerset House, in March I think.  I was impressed watching the spinning, and being offered the chance to attempt using a spindle.  But I am not going to learn to spin.  There were samples of wool from different breeds of sheep, and I realised for the first time that the differences in the handspun wool that I find in charity shops, knitted or not knitted, does not depend on the spinner but on the breed of sheep.  And handspun wool is so lovely that I decided to allow myself to buy garments knitted from handspun wool.  This is the first and only one so far, since March.

The sweater is knitted in a lace twisted rib stitch, presumably to stop the rib from slanting.  The wool is 4 ply weight, spun in 2 ply.  I was disappointed that the kinks did not disappear after washing, but it is still nice.  As it happened, I had it in mind for a different project, so I did not use it for this blanket.

This yarn brought a nice pale green colour to the blanket.  I could not resist the wool because of the name - Cleckheaton - and because it is Australian.  How wool travels.  Without checking I will say that it is 80% wool 20% nylon, and it feels so nice.  It was apparently intended for an adult sweater.  I would say it is perfect for baby clothes.






My knitting is stagnating.  I have just finished fastening the ends on blanket #154 and I have two, nearly three bus blankets to finish.  I am in the middle of one knitted and one crochet cardigan, but if I wait to go back to them until I have finished all the blankets - and they will soon be four when I finish knitting #155 - when will that be?  I also offered to reknit a sweater for a friend, and I have started but I have to put it aside because it is too hot to knit, and I want to start knitting for the winter.  I feel stressed.  I can only do one project at a time.