Churning stuff out

Around the Block baby blanket

So today I devoted myself entirely to the pursuit of finishing the writing-up of this pattern. This included grafting a (much) smaller version of the blanket and taking loads of photos of the grafting process so that I could include them in the pattern instructions.

Result: A finished and published pattern!


Regular view


Wide perspective view

I'm really, really proud of this one. I've been looking, and I haven't been able to find anybody else who's thought of making a blanket like this, so as far as I know, it's original. The blanket is knitted all in one piece on normal-length straights (or a circular, whatever works best for you), using short rows to create the mitres, and using lace to turn the holes made by the short rows into a design feature. I love it.

It's available for purchase - just be warned, it's huge (3MB). I tried my best to knock the file size down, but there's only so much you can do with a 10-page pattern filled with tons of photos to illustrate grafting specifics.

Now I just have to gift tag the blanket itself, and get it over to my friend for her new boy.

I know this makes the third for-money pattern in a row that I've posted. Lest you all think I'm getting totally mercenary, don't worry. :) My niece's mom recently emailed me with the dimensions of the baby blanket that I designed and knitted for my niece several years ago, which means I can now finish writing up the pattern for that...and it will be free. It's this one:

Yellow-on-blue side


Blue-on-yellow side

Child legs for DD1

I surged ahead on the first leg yesterday, and got it to a point where I figured I should try it on DD1 again.

Uh, DUH, yeah, it comes up practically to her crotch!

Fortunately, she likes it that way. In fact, she complained that it wasn't 100% all the way up her leg. (In response, I essentially told her to suck it up, it was already extremely sufficient in the length department.)

So, at 18" in length, I cast off the first leg.



Next up: Leg deux.

The Girlfriend Shrug for DD1

Second extension was grafted. Over 290 stitches were picked up all around the edge. Brief panic was felt at the thought of doing 1.5 inches on all those stitches using 8 DPNs, but then June came to the rescue and VERRRY kindly gave me a 2mm circular needle in return for helping a customer find exactly what she wanted in the store. (June, if you're reading this, I cannot thank you enough, the circular made the edging go soooo much faster and easier. You are so nice.)

Anyway, the edging was finished and cast off, and yesterday I finished sewing in all the ends. Here, therefore, is a frenzy of photographs of the finished product:


Front view (doesn't it look like some kind of eyeless Muppet?)


Back view


'In action', front view (the only way I could get her to do a non-simpering smile was to ask her to try and make her baby sister laugh...this was the resulting expression)


'In action', back view

Wheelie for our car

I'm in a little bit of a weird place with The Schedule. Now that the blanket is done, DH's anniversary socks are done (he likes them, BTW), and the shrug is done, I'm supposed to be working on thank-you sweaters for my best friend's niece and nephew. Their mom gave me TONS of excellent hand-me-downs some months back, thus saving us GOBS of money. When we sent them a greeting card for New Year's, I offered to make her kids totally customized hand-knit sweaters as a thank-you. Unfortunately, I haven't heard back from her yet, so I can't get started on them, no matter what The Schedule says.

So...what to do, what to do? I'm feeling that aimless blasé feeling that seems to come from finishing up loads of projects in a short amount of time. Nothing is really grabbing me right now. But I decided to be good and do something from The Schedule anyway. After all, with the weather being pretty cold right now and not looking like it's going to improve anytime soon, the logical thing to do is to make an anti-burned-hands steering wheel cover, right? Of course.



It's a pretty cool pattern, I must say.