Damn, Knit & Blast It

How does being bored with knitting plain socks on the train turn into an afternoon designing a blanket?

Here’s how…

I sat asking myself, “What can I knit on the train that’s not socks?”

Squares for a blanket maybe?

Out came my two Debbie Abrahams blanket books.

These two…

I made my Denim Blankie from one of these books – the one that hangs over my bed - they’ve been faves ever since.

After much deliberation and work with a calculator I decided it was going to be expensive! Maybe my excessive stash could yield some yarn to ease the cost?

I rummaged,  I “stash dived” (“stash dove”??), I emerged, gasping, from under the bed with three bags full of Jaeger Matchmaker DK that I snapped up in a sale a couple of years ago. Ten  balls of each of these colours….

Ooohhhh! That says “Flower Power” to me!!

The Flower Power pattern in”Blankets and Throws to Knit” uses 40 balls of Rowan Wool cotton in  8 different colours.

Like this…

I didn’t want anything quite that colourful plus I had been previously been  “Wowed” by Minxxy’s blue and white version of Flower Power. I kinda liked the “restrained palette” idea.

Hmmmm…How do I get three colours into an eight colour blanket? I am wise enough to know, especially after seeing how carefully the Denim Blankie pattern was laid out, that just doing random squares and hoping it would look OK wasn’t going to work for me. I am way too structured in my thinking to be able to tolerate an unbalanced, higgledy piggledy blanket.

Anyone who works with me knows, I’ll try and bend any problem into an opportunity to play with drawing pictures in Visio ( PC diagramming software).

So I sat and drew…

I drew stripy squares, plain squares and flowery squares….

I coloured them in every possible combination of the three colours….

I arranged them, confused myself, swore a bit and rearranged them….

I made Ben come and look…

“Ermmm, Honey….You’ve been working on this for ages – shouldn’t you save it?”  Said Ben.

Phew – One clumsy lumbering ginger cat and it could have been lost!!

Relax! It’s saved now!!

Want to see what I came up with?

The pattern is the same dimensions as the original blanket – 9×13 squares but I’m not sure if I’ll have enough wool. I’ll make vertical strips of 9 squares and hopefully it’ll not be obvious if I have to stop – that’s one of the reasons I decided on a straight forward, repeating pattern and not a complex “centered” one like Debbie Abrahams often does (Who an I kidding – this was hard enough – I don’t have her talent!!)

Here’s the breakdown of the square’s I’m going to need if I do the entire blanket…

You’ll notice that there’s 6 different flowers – there were 8 in the original pattern! I will play with the flowers a little, basing them on Debbie’s designs from the book. At least with my plan I can see what the main background and petal colours need to be.

Watch this space for flower fun… 

With a blog post title like that I’m amazed you’d want to read this!!

I finished yet another plain of boring plain socks on my daily commute this week…

Here they are….

Thrilling huh? Even Thug wasn’t too impressed.

The yarn was actually rather fun – Kaffe Fasset Regia Design Line – the colour changes were pretty enough.

I’m kinda showing you cos I think I should be. Wouldn’t want you to think I wasn’t producing something.

But say it with me…. BORING!!!

Something exciting coming up tomorrow though…

I am finally beating the three months of constant coughs and colds!

Yeah for me!

Unfortunately for my knitting, this means that I’m busy having nights out and enjoying myself to make up for lost time -  rather than sitting home and knitting.

What I’m trying to  say is there’s not much knitting progress to report. The back of the see-through jumper in finished and the front barely started.

Bad, naughty Susan.

So, what to blog?

After a night out seeing the new Watchmen film (superb) and eating the most artery clogging, bad for me and so delicious I was giggling eating it,  meal out I have ever eaten (Ed’s diner Chilli Dog with cheese)I needed to unwind and knit.

Ben snapped a piccie of me knitting the see-though jumper and what do you know? I wearing a favourite from my pre blogging days….

So here I go, delving into my “life spanning, career defining  back catalog” of knitted garments. This is a beautiful but uninspiringly named “V Neck Cable Sweater” from Bergere De France. I think of it as my French Cable Jumper.

Here’s a better picture, you can see the detail…

I made this way back in July 2006 from a kit I bought from Cucumberpatch. amazingly this jumper is still on their website!

The yarn is Bergere De France Berlaine. It’s not one of the most expensive yarns you’ll find – it’s a superwash pure wool and is a little “sheepy” and scratchy.

I have got to tell you though. This jumper has been worn to death. Bunged through the washing machine several times and generally given a hard time. It still looks like I have just knitted it 3 years later. This jumper is going to last at least a decade!

I have been disapointed with some yarns’ durability but this is one to go for if you want a pure yarn that will make a lasting garment that’s easy to care for.

So what was it like to knit?

An absolute pleasure – clear pattern and plenty of interest. It was an unusual pattern for me to use -   written in the continental style,  it gives the details of the three different cables then gives the garment shaping details separately – you have to put the two together!

The only part I had difficulty with was grafting the cables at the back of the neck – you kind go up the sides of the V- neck and make two little strips to join at the back of the neck to give a neat finish – not quite up to my perfectionist standards but it will do.

I could always grow my hair long again!!

I’ve been sitting at my PC, staring at a blank blogpost for about 15 minutes.

I think I may be suffering from “Knit Blogger’s Block”. That’s very like Writer’s Block…but knitterly….

Maybe it’s some kind of cross contamination between writing and blocking my knitting???

Oh dear, I just had a vision of myself pondering the life of a knit blogger and writing up my thoughts as these knitting blog posts in a “Carrie Bradshaw” introspective, Sex in the City prologue, kinda way…I’d have to be in “Knits in the City”.

Hmmmm…I have some pretty snappy knitted outfits, some superb boots (I’m not really one for high heeled, designer shoes) and the group of terrific female friend I meet up with in a coffee shop too. We talk obsessively about knitting, not sex though! Maybe I’m the reserved, knitterly British version!!

Oh look!  I’ve started writing! Maybe the Knit Blogger’s Block is broken…

…I’ll tell you about my latest project and see how I’m doing….

I have started another project from Rowan Studio 12 -

This book…

It’s the same book that had the pattern for my fluffy, lacey maroon Kidsilk Haze top too.

The book is full of Kidsilk patterns – a good one for using up my embaressment of riches of Kid Silk Haze

I liked this pattern – the See Through Top…

I liked the quirky combo of yarns – stripes of Kidsilk Aura (almost aran weight) and Kidsilk Haze (impossibly fine) on 5mm needles, giving those transparent stripes.

“Won’t you be able to see your undies??!!” You cry – Well yes, of course you would if you were mad enough not to realise you’d need a “modesty garment” underneath! That is assuming you weren’t having a Vivian Westwood day <-NSFW!!! Don’t click that link at work, especially while eating…Yuk!

So here’s the progress so far, most of the way up the back…

I have stash raided 2 balls of black, sparkly Kidsilk Night for this project. Unfortunately for my stash busting efforts, I had to go buy the 5 balls of Kidsilk Aura
Oh well, 2 balls of KSH used up is better than none!

The combination of the sparkly Kidsilk Night and the thick Aura is looking rather good – quite glammy in fact

It’s shown better in this photo of the balls of yarn …

Yum!
If this was Sex in the City, Carrie Bradshaw would be going out for a wild night out on the town about now. Accompanied by some troublesome hunk or another, gulping down Cosmopolitans and breaking her heart again.

In my knitterly, blogging version of this show, I guess I’ll have to retire to the sofa with my knitting and my not so troublesome hunk, gulping down a rather nice bottle of red wine….

Who wants to be Carrie Bradshaw anyway? I bet she’s rubbish at knitting….