Damn, Knit & Blast It

I had a sneaky feeling when I started The Flower Blanket that 30 balls of yarn wasn’t going to be enough…

I was right

One column of nine squares uses pretty much 3 balls, one of each colour. Just scraps left over. I want 13 columns and an edging (which I guessing would be about a ball of each colour).

Mewsley checked my calculation…

She agreed. I need 14 balls of each colour.

I already had 17 balls of the light grey colour so I was safe there.

Mewsley and I scoured the internet for more Jaeger Matchmaker DK – This yarn was discontinued a couple of years ago so I was seriously out on a limb.

Luck was with me.  Mewsley found 4 balls of the lilac online at Yarnsmiths! Phew…that cat is a demon with a laptop…

Just the pink to find….

None in the internet knit- shops for sale…

None in any of the London Knit-shops I visited…

But quite a bit in people’s stashes on Ravelry! I contacted several people hopefully and cheekily because if it’s in their stash it’s probably there because they want to use it at some point. A few “it’s been used up already” and” Sorry – I’m gonna use it laters” and I was getting panicky.

Visions of “Premature Blanket Truncation” disturbed my sleep.

I saw that Yarnsnob had a single ball, marked for trade or sale. One ball is better than none! Thanks Yarnsnob!!

Then TheKnittingNurse was happy to sell me 8 balls from the USA! Thanks Knittingnurse !!

Woot!!  Enough yarn has been secured

I’d better get on with  knitting another heap of those squares!

My needles are smokin’!

I’m still slogging away at the Flower Blanket!

…and I have discovered Blanket Rule No.6…

Sixth rule: Tired Sleepy Knitter + Intarsia = Tears

I tried to press on one evening, when very tired, and finish one of the flowers. Once you’re past the centre it’s relatively easy – just the column of single stitches between the petals to worry about…

How wrong can a tired person get it?

GRRRrrr !! Frog Frog Frog…

Apart from that mishap, progress has been quite good. I have completed 36 squares, that’s 4 rows of the 13 needed!!

The maths part of my brain has to tell you that that’s 30.6% complete, not including any edging – I haven’t thought that far ahead yet.

Want to see a progress shot of some squares sewn up???

To get that far I spent most of Easter sprawled on the sofa knitting. Thug particularly enjoyed “helping” – which consisted mostly of sleeping on my lap, getting in the way and using my wool as a pillow.

I suspect he was simply posing for the camera because he felt he hasn’t had enough blog-time recently!

He was working hard to stop the wool escaping here…

There were too many other cute shots to show you so I’ve put together a collage …

Awwwww….

I realised that I have created a set of strict rules for myself when I’m working on the Flower Blanket. The Blankie-Police are not going to come and get me if I break them but they do make life easier, or maybe more achievable, if I follow them.

Your rules and ways of thinking are probably different to mine but I thought I’d share!

This post probably follows logically on from the  Blankie Dilemas post that I wrote when making my Picnic Blanket so here goes…

First Rule: Minimise ends

On the first purl row, I use the fairisle weaving technique to weave in the tail left by casting on behind the stitches…the less ends to sew in the better.

When doing the striped squares, I carry the “not in use” colour up the side of the work, weaving it behind the last stitch of each knit row.

Second rule: Know what way is up

When I cast off, I always leave a long tail to be used to sew the square, using mattress stitch, to the next square up in the strip. This saves end weaving and makes it easy to identify the top and bottom of a block.  The striped squares are particularly easy to get upside down.(…ask me how I know?) The Flowers have one petal at the bottom and two at the top too.  You wouldn’t believe it but it screams if  even the plain squares  are the wrong way up!

Third rule: Finish one  square before starting another

This might sound silly! I have to be strict with myself and sew all the ends in and do any Swiss embroidery on any one square before starting a new one (especially the intarsia flowers). If I was faced with a pile of intarsia squares needing ends darning in, I’d never do it!

Fourth rule: Work on the squares for one vertical strip at a time

Not too strict on this one, but never the less …  It stops me going off and doing all my favorite squares first then not finishing because I’ve got the yucky ones left to do! The advantage of this approach is that you get a little “Achievement Boost” each time you finish an entire strip.

Fifth rule: Sew up as you go along

If you’ve followed rule four, You’ll have a regular strip-full of squares to sew together – again, it would seem a huge job to do the entire blanket all at once but seeing one strip come together, then sew two strips together??? I need that feeling of “progress”

The Blankie-Police may not enforce these rules but I suspect they have sent in an undercover agent, equipped with laser eyes, to watch out for misdemeanours .

Scanning the area for signs of blanket squares……..

I have finished 17 squares of my Flower Blanket, rejiggled the pattern (again) and done some sewing up!

The squares have taken over as my train knitting – on a knitpicks circular needle (ideal on a crowded train and for leaving fellow commuter’s eyes in their sockets!) I can get one striped or one moss stitchy square done in a day’s commute (more if the train is running late – hurrah for late trains! )

The intarsia flowers are WAY too much grief do anywhere other than the sofa.

Look at my accumulated detritus associated with these flowers! Nowhere for Ben or a cat to sit!

I do save my lovely Signature needles to do these though

Want to see some of the bobbiny action?

This is probably the most detailed square, but one of the plainest to knit. It’s plain to knit because I’m adding all the details with Swiss embroidery – it feels like cheating somehow …

Half way through the embroidery…

Want to see the other two flowers?

The lilac around the centre is Swissed on this one…

And then there’s this one…

I think it’s too plain. I’m gonna embroider some silver around the centre I think…

Now a boring bit…
I noticed another error in my layout – if you looked at a vertical strip it had two flowers with lilac petals in the same strip!

Another (yawn) version of the layout here…version 3.1. I promise. This is the last revision. I could waste hours jiggling this – I want to knit!

And the obligatory key to match…

So do you want to see exactly how far I’ve got??
Wanna see the strips sewn up?

OK…as you’ve been patient!

It does seem a little daunting at the moment…this picture kinda sums up the way the scale of this blanket goes on and on out of sight!