FO: Sampler Baby Blanket

Yarn: Plymouth Encore in grey, dark grey, brown, and cream
Needles: US 9 (which, in retrospect, was too big)
Patterns Used (four squares, one of each color for each pattern):

• Plain stockinette squares
• Using 100 Afghan Squares to Knit by Debbie Abrahams, I knit the "Sea Wall" basket weave and "Twine" cables patterns
• "Embossed Twining Vine Leaf" from Barbara Walker

I've already posted about this blanket a couple of times, so I don't have much more to say. This was the very first project I ever started, and after a few months I was more than ready to put this in a basket and never look back. I am very grateful to the Webs podcast - while doing the Babette crochet-along, they suggested doing a baby blanket if a full afgan was too much - and Project Spectrum Air, which convinced me to pull it out again. I'm not sure who will be the lucky baby - they may not yet be conceived - but I think it will make someone else very happy someday.

I am still working on baby blanket #2 - that one will be made of Celtic-style cabled squares.

Aran-style bag

I bought the yarn for this baby over a year ago.


Tahki Donegal Tweed, 100 % wool


I really love the color, the tweediness, and the slubiness of this yarn.

I really like to knit cables, and the more they look like old Celtic or Viking knotwork, the better. I love Aran sweaters, but I live in the Pacific Northwest, where sweaters are not really needed, and well, I don't feel ready to knit a sweater yet. So I decided I would make a bag in the Aran style, something big enough to carry a book and a wallet for when I wanted to take a walk or go read in a coffee shop for a little while.

I tried out many different cable patterns (see how handy that sampler blanket project is?) and settled on the patterns I would use. Swatching commenced. I first tried US size 7 needles, a little smaller than the recommended 8s because I want a tight fabric, but found the cabling too hard to work. I frogged the swatch and tried again in 8s.





I found the yarn a little hard to work with. It's fairly scratchy and the homespun style means it's one ply, without the sproinginess of plied yarn. The yarn itself tends to curl up in corkscrews as I pull it out of the wound ball, which is a bit annoying. The kicker, though, is that I can't get all the stitches I want in the pattern I've designed and keep it to the 16 inch circumference I'm headed for. The swatch pictured above is 17 inches, but I don't have quite all the elements I want in the piece.

I'm afraid this yarn may be destined to become something else. Any suggestions for 100 g of worsted weight 100% wool? It's 183 yards...

Four More Squares

Remember this project?



After having put aside the sampler blanket for several months, I finally pulled it out again. I couldn't quite make myself knit the same square four times in the four different colors of yarn, but I did enjoy challenging myself with new cable patterns:


Cable pattern from St. Brigid sweater in Alice Starmore's Aran Knitting.


Bjars Hitches Cables pattern from Elsebeth Lavold's Viking Patterns for Knitting.


"Interlaced Twisted Rings" and "Twisted Linked Rings" cable patterns from Elsebeth Lavold's Viking Patterns for Knitting.

Celtic Plait Scarf

In March, I finished knitting the Celtic Plait scarf I started back in November - just in time for spring. It looks very good, and is very warm.





The yarn (Jo Sharp Silkroad Aran Tweed in Dusk) is 85% wool, 10% silk, 5% cashmere and has lovely slubs of cream, green, blue, and maroon. It's a little scratchy around the neck but was very nice yarn to work with. I knit until three balls of yarn were used up.

The pattern for the cabled Celtic plait is from the Harmony Guide's 220 Aran Stitches and Patterns. I added two stitches of reverse stockinette on each side of the cable. It curls slightly, but I'm a garter stitch snob, and didn't want a border. Knit in US Size 8 needles.

When I finished this, I wondered, What to do next? I really want to try my hand at lace knitting, but that's a serious investment of time in one piece. Then again, I've been fingering some lovely alpaca yarn at the LYS recently and I could make a lace shawl made of clouds, it's so soft. But this I've got some other fantastic Celtic knotwork cable patterns that I want to give a try ...

RIP WIP

In February/March, I attempted another baby blanket for another pregnant friend, but my attempts ended in defeat. I just couldn't knit with that stiff cotton, it made my tendinitis so bad. In fact, I had to lay off the needles for several days to give my arm/shoulder/back time to heal. Which is a shame, because the blue/purple/lavender heather is so pretty.



Two more pics on my Flickr.

Three purpl-y strands of 3/2 mercerized cotton, (140 stitches, a 2 inch garter stitch border, three C3F cables up the center on a reverse stockinette background.) I think it looks pretty good, and I love the way the mix of colors heathers, but I just couldn't take the pain. I gave the cones of yarn to my partner, and after I worked up the courage, frogged it - but saved the used yarn just in case I could pick it up and work with it again at some point.

My First Project

In February of '06, I finally gave up resisting and took up knitting. (Resisting? All those friends of mine who would knit whenever we were together and show off their beautiful fibers, making me jealous and my hands feel empty. I didn't have time for another hobby, I said. The computer has already ruined my arm, I said. But, yes, resistance was ultimately futile in face of yarn's siren call.)

I thought about what my first project would be for a long time before I confessed to a knitting friend that I wanted to learn how to knit. I knew that I wanted to make something useful. I wanted something I could knit in small, portable pieces and have something finished (little victories!), but also something that would really be special when I was done. So I decided on a blanket. I had a vision of neutral, natural colors spread across my bed or draped on the back of the couch.

That fateful day 14 months ago, my friend Stephanie took me to The Yarn Gallery and helped me make my first purchase. I weighed my options and my budget and settled on Plymouth Yarn's Encore 25% wool 75% acrylic. I wanted to make a blanket and so I bought 16 skeins of yarn. Yes, sixteen.

This project has been good for me because each square (or set, since I bought four colors) has been a learning experience. I started with plain stockinette:


knit Feb/March 2006

and graduated to basketweave:


"Sea Wall" pattern from 100 Afghan Squares to Knit by Debbie Abrahams, knit spring 2006

and eventually to cables:


"Twine" cables pattern from 100 Afghan Squares to Knit by Debbie Abrahams, knit late spring 2006

Then I got a hold of the Harmony Guide stitch dictionary series and went fancy with the cabling:


cable pattern from Harmony Guide's 450 Knitting Stitches - Volume 2, knit summer 2006


cable pattern from Harmony Guide's 220 Aran Stitches and Patterns, knit summer 2006

Which left me with a nice pile of squares:



Then one of my best friends got pregnant and I eagerly leaped upon the opportunity to knit something else, anything else! Lesson learned: 16 skeins of yarn for a first project, no matter how much the newbie knitter is convinced this is the only project for her/him, is just too much.

The 20 squares have only used about 1/3 of my yarn.