The next blanket

The next blanket, #208, is the next dark ones.  They are all the same now.  I use the same black wool, and there is a lot of green to go through.  This one has navy mohair, navy cotton and brown and dark grey wool.  It is much darker than the pictures.  The white bits belong to a nice black white marled alpaca, unlabelled.

To add to the green I unravelled a neat light short green cardigan.  The yarn turned out to be lovely.  It is a flecked thin tweed yarn, a pleasure to knit with.

Rau sweater

The next yarn to be used was Rowan Lenpur Linen, bought in sales some eight years ago.  I had 10 balls each in two shades, Cocoa - brown and Tattoo - grey.  The pattern that I found was in Knitscene Summer 2017, Rau sweater by Quenna Lee.

It is a simple design, stocking stitch body and sleeves with a garter stitch yoke with lace detail on the front.  I knitted the body and the sleeves in the round.  The front and back yokes are joined at the shoulders with three needle cast off.  I didn't do very well doing it in garter stitch - a good thing it doesn't show in the pictures.  The stitches for the sleeves are picked up and worked downwards.  I did full length sleeves, having cold wrists.

It was straightforward knitting.  The lace detail was an interesting and something different for me.  I managed to get the number of stitches right so it fits me well.  Mine has more ease than the pattern, deliberately.  I did the yoke in grey - and the rest in brown - because I thought there might not be enough brown.  There would have been.  I like wearing it.

The yarn, viscose 75% and linen 25%, feels nice to the touch when knitted.  But, it splits badly, so I had to be careful knitting it.  I would avoid similar yarns in future.

Rau Sweater, Quenna Lee (Knitscene Summer 2017)

Yarn: Rowan Lenpur Linen, viscose 75% linen 25%, Cocoa and Tattoo shades

Needles: 3.0mm for rib and yoke, 3.5mm for body and sleeves

Size: S

Weight: 460gr

Knitted 29 April to 18 August 2019

The next blanket

The next blanket, #207, turned out quite pleasing.  I managed to omit all discordant shades, and all blend together nicely.  The blanket is white and pink with grey and beige shades.  My only thought was that I must include more whites in the next one.

I unravelled this cardigan, from one of Kaffe Fassett's early kits.  This must be the third or fourth I have done.  It contains mainly Rowan DK wools in nice shades.  It was knitted in fairisle and was easy to unravel.

According to my spreadsheet the next lots to be added are other 1990s Rowan yarns.  One is an Annabel Fox beige DK, a total of 9.5 balls so it will last a long time.  The mohair next to it is not Rowan; it is Jonelle but nice nonetheless.

The unlabelled balls in this picture are Rowan, a 4 ply tweed often used in their kits.  It could be Light Tweed or Fine Fleck Tweed, or something else altogether.  I often find yarn from Rowan 1990s kits and I can't help buying it, thinking I must give it a good home.  My blankets seem an appropriate place.  It is lovely yarn to knit with and it adds nice texture.

CKCA7 Greenway

This is my next blanket from Comfort Knitting and Crochet Afghans, a crochet design, Greenway, by Donna Yacino.  I skipped #6 Ribbon because broomstick lace does not interest me.

Greenway on the other hand was tempting.  I had the cotton yarn in mind, and I like this kind of crochet pattern with rows in different colours.  The yarn was Patons 4 ply mercerized cotton in shades of white, cream and beige (plus one ball of similar Sirdar).  To add I had one ball of lavender and some unlabelled matt cotton in bright apricot and pink/brown.  I devised a regular striping pattern - it may be difficult to spot but it is there.

Since my yarn is thinner than the yarn in the pattern I worked out the number of stitches needed for a regular blanket, and I got it nearly right.  The pattern was clear and it was easy enough to do.  But it took such a long time with thin yarn.  I enjoy crochet but the problem with a slow project is that I am anxious to finish it because I would rather be knitting.

I decided the blanket was done when I ran out of yarn.  It was far too short for a standard blanket, but that couldn't be helped.  I did the edging, in an unlabelled cream cotton, as the pattern; one round of double crochet followed by one round of crab stitch.  It works.  I knotted the ends two by two on the side and crocheted over them when I did the edging, no other fastening.

I don't like the blanket very much.  The cotton makes it stiff compared to a woollen blanket, and not at all comfortable to snuggle under.  The best use would be as a picnic rug or play blanket for children.  It would be hard wearing and easily washable being cotton.

I do like the stripes and the colours, and I could look at it for a long time.  The apricot lifts it, and not even the lavender disturbs me.



This is where I decided to abandon my project to work my way consecutively through the projects in this book.  Now that my objective is to finish the yarn in the yarn store chronologically doing challenging patterns takes too long.  I need patterns that I can do while watching TV, and since I get most pleasure from putting yarns and colours together the patterns can be straightforward.

But glancing through the book now I keep seeing patterns that I would like to try...

I also need to decide what to do about the thin cotton yarns in the yarn store.  I had saved them for this kind of crochet, but however simple the pattern it takes too long.  I could use them doubled but that doesn't appeal to me.  Now I'm considering using them in my standard blankets.  It would add nice texture.

Greenway

Pattern: Comfort Knitting and Crochet Afghans Donna Yacino
Yarn: Patons 4 ply cotton and others
Hook: 2.5 mm
Size: 115 cm by 130 cm

Weight: 1150 gr

Done 17 March to 31 August 2019

The next blanket

The next blanket, #206, turned out to be rather nice.  It has darkish colours, red with brown, green and grey.  In reality the blanked is darker than the pictures.  It is the regular stripe of Rowan Magpie aran that makes it.  I would call the shade rust, but I found that it is called ginger.  The royal blue mohair doesn't look out of place either.  I have a lot of mohair in this shade, and I don't like it much.  Perhaps it will be possible to find a good place for it after all.

The yarn that stands out a bit, but not too much, is from an unravelled John Lewis sweater, in lilac Johnston chunky cashmere.  It adds softness.  I was afraid that the yarn would be too thick, but it works.  The sweater is knitted in an interesting cable pattern with a circular yoke, but not in the round.  I bought it cheaply in a charity shop, it fitted well and I wore it for several years.

The next blanket

The next blanket, #205, is blue with some pink and the usual grey and beige.  I like these colours.  I added some thicker yarns and an odd rough blue mohair that gave the blanket a lot of texture.

I unravelled this cabled poloneck sweater in a lilac tweed yarn.  The yarn is nice, and the sweater shows no signs of having been worn.  It is my size, and I have tried it on.  I couldn't wear it because the wide sleeves make it uncomfortable.  It was easy to unravel.

Then I added this Lopi Gefjun Tweed yarn.  A pleasure to knit with.

The next blanket

The next blanket, #204, is another with white.  I like the yarns in this one, some nice blues and greens among the white, grey and beige.  There is thin green mohair yarn to give softness, but you can't see it.





For this blanket I unravelled this Spirit of the Andes alpaca tunic.  The yarn is nice, thin, soft, presumably undyed.  The body and sleeves are knitted in the round, with the raglan sleeves sewn in.  Unravelling the patterned cable stitch is more interesting than plain stocking stitch.

Without thinking I put the yarn in the washing machine on a normal wash, and this is how it came out.  It was not very difficult to get hold of an end and pull it away for winding into a ball.  And since it was alpaca it didn't break easily.  It made the yarn nicely fluffy.  This was just the first two hanks.  I will wash the rest in a more considerate way.