Ultimate soft

Sometimes it's nice to keep a cosy layer about the neck, without the cumbersome-ness of a scarf.

This was instant gratification.

Blanket Love

Our group project is done. It turned out SO well, what a beautiful combined effort by everyone.


I'm really happy with the corners:


My I-cord join is not perfect, you can see it next to Lukey's left paw. Let's just say Kitchenering a tube is not the same as the toe of a sock.


This is for Sarah.

Blanket Border

After the seaming (this is the BACK of the seaming - looks fairly neat with ends woven in)



....we had to decide on the border. What to do? I asked around at work, I talked about it to anyone who would listen to me.... everyone graciously deferred to my judgement. Ack! Garter border? Garter border with eyelets? Applied I-Cord? Picot edging? Crocheted edging?

Back to ravelry and googling. I dithered and pondered and experimented.

Applied I-Cord was my final choice since it is very sturdy and gives a very nice clean finished look to garter edges. I HAD planned on picking up one-half stitch along each garter ridge (as in the tutorial linked below), but I found the picked up stitch was not sitting comfortably on the needle....I did not want to work my SSK with it like that, so I sat back, deflated a bit. I dwelled on it overnight before my eureka moment. At work we decided to have a violet border, so using this, I picked up sts all along one side. Then, working from the other end of the ball, began working a 4-stitch applied I-cord from where I started to pick up.



I don't a have a photo of how I started, but here's the link that got me going. It uses a provisional cast on.

Here's what I did when I turned the corner.



Then I used kitchener stitch to join it together.



One more final wash before it's ready!

Before it rained

The chairs got stained, just in time!



They perk up the backyard, great contrast to the green (and brown)



Pink hydrangeas in full out bloom!

Over halfway

Here we are at 50% seamed:



ETA: When picking up stitches along the garter ridges of the sides of the blocks (vs the cast on and cast off edges), the number of ridges were not always the same between rows of blocks - since everyone's row gauge might be a little different, there may be more or less rows to make up an eight inch square. What I'm getting at is that the number of sts must be checked carefully moving from block to block because the 3-needle bind off only works when there are the same number of stitches on the needles.



Up close and personal with the first seam going the other way!
(Loving the intersection)

It's turning out to be a really pretty blanket, the weight is very comfortable on my lap, perfect for snuggles.

Seam note

Just want to point out that when picking up stitches in the manner I am using, one must be aware of the order of the blocks.

When picking up on the bottom edge of row one, I went in order of blocks (reading left to right) 1-2-3-4-5. Then I cut the yarn.

When picking up on the top edge of row two, I went in order of 10-9-8-7-6. This means that the working yarn was coming off block 6 (which is what I wanted) and that when I held the two rows of blocks wrong sides together, I was working a three needle bind off from right to left.

And so on.

Referring to my layout for each row before picking up stitches.

Onward Blanket

Despite many years of piecing experience, seaming garter squares for a blanket is a new learning opportunity for me.
The fact that each square is knit by a different knitter is also something new to consider (ack! gauge!). Five different colours add another dimension to the finishing process.

When asked by the folks at work how I was going to do it, I kept saying, "Not sure yet, but no problem! I'll figure it out!"
A challenge! (grins)

While the squares were blocking, I toured around ravelry and the internet on methods to seam them up.

My first plan was to crochet around the edges of each block to neaten up the sides. This edging would lend easily to crocheting the seams. However, the yarn was not very forgiving (or maybe I'm just not that great at crochet?), so I bailed after a few tries.

Then, I thought I would use mattress stitch. However, I worried the finished seam would not look very neat going from one coloured square to the next. I also was not sure how strong it would be.

I finally found a thread on ravelry that suggested working a three-needle bind off to make the seam. Of course I liked this a lot since it was knitting vs crocheting, and oddly enough I actually like picking up stitches.

I picked up stitches along the bottom edge of row one (on a circ):



I did the same with the top stitches of row two, then proceeded to bind off with three needles with wrong sides together. The tutorials I viewed suggest starting with the working yarn coming from the back needle (for the first stitch). The most important thing to note here is that I used 5 mm needles to pick up 5 x 38 sts along each row edge, but when casting off, I used a 6 mm needle to ensure a stretchy seam. This is working!



It's tidy, it's strong, and the resultant ridge is a nice detail.



I'll keep going!

Sarah's Blanket

When the knitters in my department at work learned our colleague's young daughter was ill, we organised ourselves pretty fast.
Well, at least they did....I was out of town at that time. When checking my email, I found out they decided to start a project for the baby girl, a garter squares blanket! Balls of different coloured yarn (Lion Brand Cotton Ease) were being rotated, with each knitter submitting their eight inch square to the community project. I volunteered to put together the whole thing.

I found a few squares ready for me when I got back to work:



and they kept coming! All twenty-five of them. I took them home and gazed fondly at the little group, happy with the cheerful colour.



I thought they might need a good blocking to get them all to uniform size before seaming. My bedroom rug serves its main purpose as blocking surface.



Then I played with them on the dining room table to find a random pleasing arrangement.



This looks like a pretty patchwork quilt - just my kind of thing!

Socks for.....Kirk?

Who knew?

(glad he likes them)