Wednesday, April 9, 2014

Luxurious Mitred Blanket

I have incredible delusions about my knitting. When I started this blanket, from Jo Sharp Knit 9, I seriously thought that I would be finished in a month or so. What could be nicer than sitting in front of the television with a very simple knit from luxurious yarn? Hardly anything of course, but I failed to consider several important points.

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1. I don't watch much television
2. I have a lot of works-in-progress, all sitting next to the couch and keen to be worked on.
3. A 5 square blanket is not very big, and lends itself to expansion.
4. Sewing up is not my favourite thing.

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I've ended up with a 8 square x 6 square blanket. Clearly it is no longer according to the pattern. I do wonder if this is what always happens to mitred blankets, as there are a plethora of patterns for them on Ravelry - everyone must make their own version!

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It is beautifully soft and snuggly. I feel quite decadent wrapped up in a mix of wool, cashmere,mohair, silk and alpaca, and would never have thought of making such a luxurious blanket without Jo Sharp's pattern. She uses alternating strands of Alpaca Kid Lustre, Silk road Aran Tweed and Classic Double Knitting Wool in her version, with the same colourways throughout, but my version slips in a bit of DK silk road tweed, and uses a few more colours for some subtle variation between the blocks.

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I am sorry to admit that it took me nearly 2 years of patchy work to finish this project, but the good news is that I have already started another one - in cottons!

Wednesday, April 2, 2014

Sock Love

I did knit over summer, but as usual, mostly small things.
Now that the weather might be showing some signs of cooling down in the evenings and early mornings, I am very glad that I have new socks all ready to wear.
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The problem is, that I have made so many of these lovely plain yet interesting socks before, that there is very little to write about them. (The other problem is that once my daughter models them for me, I don't always get them back, but with this pair, so far, so good)
The pattern is my own.
The yarn is the delicious Aslan Trends Sante Fe, colourway Earth, with a tiny bit of Patonyle grey for the toes, as I was finishing the first sock whilst travelling, and did not have a second skein of the Sante Fe for the last centimetre of the toe ( A 50g skein of Sante Fe sometimes just makes a long enough sock for me, and sometimes is a tiny bit short).
They are very comfortable, and the variegation did not pool at all. I haven't had this happen to me yet with Sante Fe, but it is always a possibility with one of these multi colour yarns.

I may  have another pair or two to show you lurking in my almost finished pile - Don't you think that sounds so much better than UFO pile?