The next blanket

The next blanket, #197, has the colours I like, no bright shades, no discordant shades.  I continued with the random coloured Lister Tahiti mohair from blanket #196, and here it fits much better.  In other words, it adds to the total by being barely noticeable.  The other yarns are brown, beige and grey with some touches of blue and green.  It really appeals to me.  When I have used up my bright yarns all my blankets will be like this.

Frosted rose sweater by Sarah Hatton

This is the sweater I spent most of this year knitting.  Knitting anything other than blankets is a slow business, especially if it involves following a pattern.  It was the yarn that led it.  I am going through my yarn spreadsheet with the aim of using yarn in the order I bought it, and the sweater uses two of the next yarns.

The first is Rowan Kidsilk Spray, a random coloured version of Kidsilk Haze.  It had brown, my favourite, with cream.  The second is Rowan 4-ply soft, all wool, in a lovely ply in mousy brown.  I have used these before in different shades, so I knew I would like the fabric.

The pattern came from The Knitter 118, Frosted rose by Sarah Hatton.  I liked the simple construction, knit front and back, do three needle bind off at shoulders and pick up stitches for knitting the sleeves downwards in rib.  Sarah's version was in Kidsilk Haze doubled.  I did a tension square with the Spray - singly because I had not read the pattern carefully - and I wanted something thicker, so I added the 4 ply soft.  I didn't do the lace pattern because I thought it would disappear in the random colours.






Because my tension was now different I recalculated the stitch count.  

The knitting was slow, but no problem.  The neckline in the pattern was too wide for my liking, and I tried to make it smaller, with little success.  I wanted long sleeves, so I lengthened them.

It turned out to be a lovely warm sweater, and now it is colder I wear it a lot.  As can be seen from the pictures.  I have not yet washed it.  It is a shame about the pooling on the front.  There is a slight puff sleeve effect because of the way the stitches were picked up, but it is probably more me and the yarns than the pattern.

Frosted rose sweater, Sarah Hatton, The Knitter 118

Yarn: Rowan Kidsilk Spray 70% mohair 30% silk, Rowan 4 ply soft 100% wool
Needles: 4 mm, rib 3.5 mm

Tension: 20 m and 30 rows stocking stitch with one strand of each yarn

Knitted:  4 December 2017 to 29 August 2018

Weight:  425 gr

The next blanket

The next blanket, #196, is a light one with white and pastel colours.  I decided to add this Lister Tahiti mohair, random coloured white beige dark brown, and it does not really fit.  But it used up quite a lot of the yarn.  The white yarns will never run out.  I come across more and more.

This time I unravelled a cardigan, large white Esprit in the 1980s oversized aran knit style that is becoming fashionable again.  I bought it because of the yarn, an aran weight unplied wool.  This is so useful as background in the blankets giving them stability.  I used to buy them - garments in this type of yarn, especially Jigsaw did some nice ones - but with buying less I gave up.  I couldn't resist this one because of the low price.  Unravelling was a dream.

Sock yarn blanket 4

I started the next sock yarn blanket two years ago, and the knitting took some seventeen months.  Then it lay ready waiting to be finished, and I picked it up again in this summer.  I have forgotten a lot, so I rely on my notes.

This is according to the pattern set for the other blankets.  Garter stitch knitted on the diagonal, with 4 ply sock yarn and plain wool sock yarn knitted together.  I used 4.5mm needles.  Among the yarns used were Wendy Roam, Elle (SA) Sockwool 4 ply, Red Heart and Woolcraft Sock yarns, Sirdar Talisman 4 ply dark green.  The bright blue green yarn came without a label, but I think it may be Debbie Bliss sock yarn.

I did the knitting on the bus as usual with no problems.  This time I decided to crochet the blocks together, and it was easily done.  I did it with one strand of yarn, so the join shows from the right side, and the blocks open to lie side by side so there is no ridge.  I'm not sure if this is a good way of doing it or not.  It is interesting.  I did one round of double crochet as edging, followed by one row of crab stitch.  It turned out to be heavy warm blanket.  The colours are dour.

Sock yarn 4 blanket C34

Wendy Roam and sock and other 4 ply yarns doubled
size 4.5 mm needles
125 cm by 175 cm, 1500 gr
Knitted 4 September 2016 to 1 August 2018

The next blanket

The next blanket, #195, is another dark one.  It contains the usual black, navy, brown and green yarns, and I added a regular stripe of various dark red and burgundy yarns.  The black mohair yarn is nice, adding softness and texture.  An odd picture - too light showing the fussiness of the mohair.  The black yarn is prominent.

CKCA5 Bright Star

The next pattern in the Comfort Knitting and Crochet Afghans book, Bright Star by Norah Gaughan, is the reason I bought the book. I found it very attractive as it is based on a patchwork pattern, and I was intrigued to see how the pieces were fitted together.

I was disappointed when I read the pattern to find that it involved a lot of seaming. But since my objective was to knit some version of all patterns in the book I persevered.

My second problem was working out the instructions. My hands can follow knitting instructions but my brain gets in the way. Here I had no idea of how Square A was supposed to look. The diagram was little help because the same type of line denoted edges of blocks, divisions of shades and mitres, and the same letters blocks and shades. A few words of explanation would have been very helpful. Garterstitch intarsia was new to me too. I got there with the help of Ravelry.

Once I had worked out how to knit Square A it was easy. I quite enjoyed the knitting. The yarn was lovely. I decided to use my store of Rowan Pure Wool Aran. It felt so much nicer than its replacement, Worsted Aran. I was limited to the shades I had bought in the sale. I ran out of the green, and as I was reluctant to pay full price plus postage for a discontinued yarn from an internet retailer I did the remainder in a pale grey.

The seaming was a chore. My brain couldn’t stop working out ways of reducing the numbers of seams. I did the corner squares and the side rectangles from picked up stitches. For edging I did my favourite three ridges of garterstitch.

I am quite pleased with the result. I like the way the red and brown stars really stand out. It is a shame about the grey substitution yarn. When I took the pictures I inadvertently stretched the blanket lengthwise – easily done with garterstitch – so in reality it is shorter than it looks. It does not quite cover a single bed.

It took me more than six months to finish the blanket, but this is misleading because I set it aside for the three months that life got in the way. The blocks took two months and the fastening ends and seaming about seven weeks.

Bright Star

Pattern: Comfort Knitting and Crochet Afghans Norah Gaughan
Yarn: Rowan Pure Wool Aranl 100% wool
Needles: 5.0 mm
Size: 135 cm by 160 cm
Weight: 1880 gr

22 November 2017 to 2 June 1018 

The next blanket

The next blanket, #194, is unremarkable, with stripes in red, brown and green.  The boucle yarn is a Cuschendale mohair yarn, a bit awkward to knit, possibly because bigger needles would be better.  I like including mohair because of the softness it gives.

Candace Bahouth: Starry Night tapestry cushion

I couldn't resist buying the kit for the Starry Night waistcoat, because of the name.  Candace Bahouth has done work with Kaffe Fassett and has had joint exhibitions of mosaic work with him.  I planned to cut out a square of the canvas to make a cushion and fill the blank parts with some abstract pattern of my own device.

But later I found this cushion kit, and it seemed much simpler to do it instead.  I was glad I did, because I found that, although the picture is pretty similar, the detail on the cushion is greater and nicer to stitch.

The stitching went fine.  I enjoyed doing the floor tiles.  The sky was more complex, with four different shades of blue.  I wondered if I got the shades right.  The sky was done in horizontal stripes, and the reverse got quite thick with yarn.  It looks fine anyway.

Gold lurex yarn was provided for the moon and stars, and it does add interest.  You were supposed to use two strands of lurex; I added a strand of yellow embroidery wool to one strand of lurex to make it make stitching more pleasant.

I liked the border that hardly shows in the picture, and I did a backing of a patterned blue fabric.  Overall I am happy with it.  It is not one of my favourites.  I would not have chosen to do it if it hadn't been for the connection to Kaffe Fassett.

Stitched  2 September 2016 to 25 November 2017; finished cushion 12 January 2018

The next blanket

It was never my intention to stop blogging for so long, but life got in the way.  And once I got out of the habit, it became difficult to get back in again.  Life got in the way of knitting as well, and I have a number of projects waiting to get finished.  This is old projects waiting for finishing before life got in the way.  I was too stressed to knit anything but my standard blanket.  Again I wonder why I insist on doing difficult blankets and garments when the thing I enjoy the most is my standard blankets...

The next blanket # 193 became pink and green, and the colours really make it.  As before I just try to use up yarns in a similar tone, and I didn't expect the pink and greens to be so prominent.  No harm done.

I unravelled the next of my Susan Duckworth entrelac or basket stitch sweaters.  There was a lot of nice Rowan DK wool, in my kind of colours.  I enjoy unravelling entrelac.  I have one more of these sweaters, but the next one is going back to a charity shop, come autumn, because the angora yarn in it has shrunk with washing, and unravelling would involve cutting and frustration and wasting yarn.

The next blanket

The next blanket, #192, is supposedly white, but I am adding more pastel shades.  This blanket is a mix of pinks and blues, with green, beige, grey and yellow.  I have done numerous blankets in these colours over the years.  The yarns change but the colours do not.

Account for 2017

As I had decided at the end of 2016 to abandon all attempts to curtail my yarn acquisitions I bought a lot of yarn in 2017, more than the previous year.  That is about all that can be said.  I bought a lot of very nice yarn.

I used up a similar amount of yarn as in previous years, 21.1kg, and that is encouraging.  I feel stressed sometimes that the thing I like knitting the most is the standard blankets, and I will always pick the current one up in preference to anything else.  That standard blankets use unravelled yarn, and the very nice yarn remain untouched.

For this current year, 2018, I will continue buying but try to concentrate on quality yarn.  I will, for the first time, try to consider colours to avoid ones I dislike.

To make my accounts look better, I have decided to exclude knitted garments that I buy in order to wear, even if they will eventually end up unravelled in a blanket.  And I am trying not to buy knitted items just for unravelling.  There are already plenty in the yarn store.

Here is one of my nicer purchases:  sock yarn at a very good price.

The next blanket

The next blanket, #191, is another dark blanket, using the same yarns as in the previous
one, more or less. This time I added a regular row of black mohair, and it adds some nice softness. My objective of reducing the amount of yarn in the blanket box is working well. I have nearly used up all the DK weight yarns. That means that I have run out of new yarns to add. A blanket uses about 100 gr of each shade, and I will need some 15 – 20 different yarns, so it means that I will need to find some more shades. I am itching to start on my box of yarns reserved for special projects, and I will have to decide between it and unravelling some more items. Ideally I need a mixture of the two.