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.

The Schedule is pleased...and displeased

My thanks for the compliments on my baby's cuteness. (But believe me, if you heard her cute voice sounds, you'd plotz even more.) Of course I know she is irresistibly sweet, which is why I keep nibbling her. :) But it's lovely to hear that it's not just the mom in me that thinks so.

Mitred corners blanket for Raymond

It took a few false starts with the grafting before I figured out exactly how I should've been starting it so that everything lined up properly. I will spare you the frustrating details of exactly what I did wrong. Suffice it to say that I was not a happy camper for a while there. It really sucks: a) grafting, b) undoing grafting, c) undoing grafting when the tail is really long (enough to do 99 stitches), d) having to do items a) through c) multiple times.

At last, however, I grafted successfully, and then washed and blocked it to try and stop the braid border from curling so much (it worked). As of Wednesday, I had a completed blanket.

It will, however, still be some time before I can make the pattern available. I have completed the (considerably) smaller sample piece that I will be using as the model to take photographs of the grafting process, and I have also taken shots of the actual blanket. But I still have to document the grafting and finish writing up the pattern, so stay tuned.

Here's a sneak preview, though:

The Girlfriend Shrug for DD1

I have a very nifty story to tell.

Some time ago, I shelved this project because even having put a perpendicular insert down the back three cabled braids wide, the body still wasn't really wide enough to fit DD1 well, and I just could not face the idea that I had to do two more braid inserts - the first one was such a slow slog.

After mulling this problem over and over in my head, I realised that what I really should be doing was trying to find some more of the original striping yarn. Then I could do really fast parallel inserts and some grafting - it would be a pain in the ass, but still considerably less so than the perpendicular braid inserts. The problem was that I hadn't been able to find anyone in the GTA or beyond who sold this yarn, and although I think I did find one or two sites that sold it online, I seem to recall that it was more money than I really wanted to spend.

Enter Ravelry.

I started hunting through people's stashes, looking for everyone who had this yarn in my colourway. Unfortunately, I couldn't find anyone who had partial balls, but I did find someone who had it, had started to do something with it, didn't like it, and now had now idea what to do with the yarn and it was just languishing in her stash. I 'cold called' her with Ravelry messaging, and asked what the odds were that I could trade her something for it...or just pay for it outright.

Delight of delights, she was more than happy to let it go, and refused to take anything for it. Instead, she asked me to make a charitable contribution somewhere worthy, and that would be good enough for her. Isn't she lovely? (She has no blog for me to link to, unfortunately, otherwise I would.)

Sure enough, on Friday the yarn showed up. I gave some money to Médecins sans Frontières and emailed the Yarn Harlot so that my benefactor would get credited at Knitters without Borders with the donation.

Meanwhile, I've already completed the elongating of the shrug back on one side, and just need to graft the extension together with the rest of the shrug on the other side:



After that, I just have to do the edging and ends-weaving, and it's finished! (I am avoiding the thought of where I'm going to find enough 2mm DPNs to go all around the edge. I'll fall off that bridge when I come to it.)

Bella Paquita for moi

There was some time in between finishing the mitred corners blanket and receiving the yarn to continue working on The Girlfriend Shawl. I didn't really feel like going back to existing projects, so - you guessed it - I started up something else.

I've had my eye on this pattern to use with the burgundy/maroon worsted weight superwash I inherited from my parents' neighbour across the hall. It's going to be for me, and I've reduced the bustline a touch so that it should fit me perfectly. I'm working on the yoke right now. This picture doesn't really make it look like much more than a burgundy/maroon lump, but trust me, it's coming along well: