purlsandmurmers

A Knitting Update (from 2022)

A Knitting Update

I promised finished objects.  Finally.

First something simple:  

The headband was started on a whim.  I was attending a brioche workshop.  My single-color brioche swatch was progressing well, and when the instructor mentioned this pattern -- Headband with a Twist -- I just ripped out my swatch and cast on the recommended number of stitches with no thought to gauge or anything else.  It is a pretty simple project, and I am happy with the results, although I do think I could have done this a bit differently.  

My headband is a bit wider than I might prefer.  This headband was knit in Rowan's felted tweed in color Boulder, one of the partial skeins left over from the temperature blanket project.  Although I love felted tweed, and I love this headband, I think I would like a headband in a more tightly spun yarn even better. If I do knit another headband in Felted Tweed, and I might, I also think I would use a smaller needle, and possibly cast on fewer stitches, making it slightly less wide.    I do however love the headband I knit and I will wear it when the weather inevitably cools again.

Luckily this is a fast, fun, mindless knit and I can see myself making a few of them.  I wonder if they would be potential gifts.

There is one error, shown here, which I noticed a few rows after I had made it.  There is a bar across a column of knit stitches, where I forgot to wrap. It would be more obvious in a less fuzzy yarn. I intentionally decided not to tink back and fix it, decided that one error was itself an important statement, a reminder of the imperfection of life, and it is on the inside of the headband anyway.  I can't say that I made no other errors, but I did fix them all.  This is another reason I like this pattern, it is just enough to use as a practice piece, to master brioche until it becomes like second nature, and short enough that I don't become bored with the process.

Second project -- a baby blanket (my last blanket for a while)

This is knit in Blue Sky Sweater Worsted yarn in three colors.  It is a gift for my baby brother's first great-grandchild, Sloane.   Here it is spread out to block, with blocking wires running in every direction to make sure the lines and angles are true:

It is a thicker, more substantial baby blanket, what with a worsted weight yarn and the garter stitch, but I like it anyway and hope it will be received well.   It has a great feel and nice drape, despite its weight and I think it will be sturdy.  One thing I do note is that the yarn created a substantial amount of lint when washed prior to blocking, and upon looking it up on Ravelry I see that others have noted the same thing.   Today I will de-lint, remove the wires and wrap this up for delivery later this month when I will be in Texas.

I promised finished objects.  Finally.

First something simple:  

The headband was started on a whim.  I was attending a brioche workshop.  My single-color brioche swatch was progressing well, and when the instructor mentioned this pattern -- Headband with a Twist -- I just ripped out my swatch and cast on the recommended number of stitches with no thought to gauge or anything else.  It is a pretty simple project, and I am happy with the results, although I do think I could have done this a bit differently.  

My headband is a bit wider than I might prefer.  This headband was knit in Rowan's felted tweed in color Boulder, one of the partial skeins left over from the temperature blanket project.  Although I love felted tweed, and I love this headband, I think I would like a headband in a more tightly spun yarn even better. If I do knit another headband in Felted Tweed, and I might, I also think I would use a smaller needle, and possibly cast on fewer stitches, making it slightly less wide.    I do however love the headband I knit and I will wear it when the weather inevitably cools again.

Luckily this is a fast, fun, mindless knit and I can see myself making a few of them.  I wonder if they would be potential gifts.

There is one error, shown here, which I noticed a few rows after I had made it.  There is a bar across a column of knit stitches, where I forgot to wrap. It would be more obvious in a less fuzzy yarn. I intentionally decided not to tink back and fix it, decided that one error was itself an important statement, a reminder of the imperfection of life, and it is on the inside of the headband anyway.  I can't say that I made no other errors, but I did fix them all.  This is another reason I like this pattern, it is just enough to use as a practice piece, to master brioche until it becomes like second nature, and short enough that I don't become bored with the process.

Second project -- a baby blanket (my last blanket for a while)

This is knit in Blue Sky Sweater Worsted yarn in three colors.  It is a gift for my baby brother's first great-grandchild, Sloane.   Here it is spread out to block, with blocking wires running in every direction to make sure the lines and angles are true:

It is a thicker, more substantial baby blanket, what with a worsted weight yarn and the garter stitch, but I like it anyway and hope it will be received well.   It has a great feel and nice drape, despite its weight and I think it will be sturdy.  One thing I do note is that the yarn created a substantial amount of lint when washed prior to blocking, and upon looking it up on Ravelry I see that others have noted the same thing.   Today I will de-lint, remove the wires and wrap this up for delivery later this month when I will be in Texas.

Temperature Blanket 2022

The Temperature blanket is finally complete!  Although I did not finish it in February as I had originally hoped, I did finish before the end of March and that counts as a success in my book.  This means that it took me slightly over a year, almost 13 months, to knit the blanket, which is is pretty much on schedule, or would have been had I knit one garter ridge a day -- also the original plan.  Of course waiting for a yarn order also slowed things down, and by the time the yarn arrived I was wrapped up in another project.... 

 

I love the results.  Admittedly I would have liked a little more color variation in the middle of the blanket, just as I would have liked a little more temperature variation in those middle five months.   Generally however, the blanket turned out well, and the excitement of seeing what the next color would be was both motivating and a bit of a lesson in combining colors as I found myself entrance by color combinations that would not have occurred to me otherwise.

 

I purchased 21 colors of Rowan's Felted Tweed for this blanket and I used 20 of them.  Surprisingly the color I did not use was the warmest color, Rage, which was to indicate days where the high reached 96 degrees Fahrenheit, or greater.  We usually do get a couple of days a year that are that warm, but the highest temperature in 2022 was 95.  Now, we had 5 straight months where the average high was over 80, a bit of a long stretch for us, and 90 days where the temperature was over 85, which puts us right at the top edge of the normal range for this area in terms of heat index.  The extended prolonged heat was actually harder on my garden than the cold snap in December.  So I have to say the blanket was nicely balanced between being relatively mindless while also being fun and educational. 

 

 

I was inspired to knit this by the temperature blanket post at Modern Daily Knitting, and I started roughly, as they suggested with Kaffe Fassett's Garter Stitch Striped Shawl.  Basically that means I used the needle size he recommended and knit the shawl in garter stitch. I knew that my gauge would be looser than the gauge recommended in the pattern because I have knit this yarn before and have knit patterns by Rowan and this designer.    My gauge was 18 stitches and 34 rows to 4 inches (as opposed to the Kaffe Fassett pattern which got 24 stitches and 44 rows to 4 inches.  I liked the fabric created at my gauge, and I love the weight and drape of the blanket.  It does not feel too loosely knitted, in fact it feels quite ideal for my use and my preferences.

 

The finished blanket is 60 inches wide by 96 inches long.   According to my records I used 23 1/2 skeins, or 4509 yards.  I had originally estimated, from my gauge swatch, that the blanket would take 19 or 20 skeins, and I estimated that the border would take 3 1/2 to 4 skeins and both ended up right on point.  Overall I am happy. 

 

via restingmotion.typepad.com

The Temperature blanket is finally complete!  Although I did not finish it in February as I had originally hoped, I did finish before the end of March and that counts as a success in my book.  This means that it took me slightly over a year, almost 13 months, to knit the blanket, which is is pretty much on schedule, or would have been had I knit one garter ridge a day -- also the original plan.  Of course waiting for a yarn order also slowed things down, and by the time the yarn arrived I was wrapped up in another project.... 

 

I love the results.  Admittedly I would have liked a little more color variation in the middle of the blanket, just as I would have liked a little more temperature variation in those middle five months.   Generally however, the blanket turned out well, and the excitement of seeing what the next color would be was both motivating and a bit of a lesson in combining colors as I found myself entrance by color combinations that would not have occurred to me otherwise.

 

I purchased 21 colors of Rowan's Felted Tweed for this blanket and I used 20 of them.  Surprisingly the color I did not use was the warmest color, Rage, which was to indicate days where the high reached 96 degrees Fahrenheit, or greater.  We usually do get a couple of days a year that are that warm, but the highest temperature in 2022 was 95.  Now, we had 5 straight months where the average high was over 80, a bit of a long stretch for us, and 90 days where the temperature was over 85, which puts us right at the top edge of the normal range for this area in terms of heat index.  The extended prolonged heat was actually harder on my garden than the cold snap in December.  So I have to say the blanket was nicely balanced between being relatively mindless while also being fun and educational. 

 

 

I was inspired to knit this by the temperature blanket post at Modern Daily Knitting, and I started roughly, as they suggested with Kaffe Fassett's Garter Stitch Striped Shawl.  Basically that means I used the needle size he recommended and knit the shawl in garter stitch. I knew that my gauge would be looser than the gauge recommended in the pattern because I have knit this yarn before and have knit patterns by Rowan and this designer.    My gauge was 18 stitches and 34 rows to 4 inches (as opposed to the Kaffe Fassett pattern which got 24 stitches and 44 rows to 4 inches.  I liked the fabric created at my gauge, and I love the weight and drape of the blanket.  It does not feel too loosely knitted, in fact it feels quite ideal for my use and my preferences.

 

The finished blanket is 60 inches wide by 96 inches long.   According to my records I used 23 1/2 skeins, or 4509 yards.  I had originally estimated, from my gauge swatch, that the blanket would take 19 or 20 skeins, and I estimated that the border would take 3 1/2 to 4 skeins and both ended up right on point.  Overall I am happy.