This week I've been feeling really cold and I find it really hard to get to sleep when I'm cold so I've pulled out the bed socks and dug out this blanket I made last year. It's huge, even without knitting the full set of repeats, and in double knit (or 4ply held double) so it's a bit like a weighted blanket too. It wasn't the most fun to knit over the summer, it got a bit toasty, but then I didn't get around to blocking it until just before Christmas. It was big when I was knitting, it's huge now it's blocked, it took over my whole bedroom floor (honest, it's like 5 foot across).
Yarn:
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| Excuse the mess. |
Needles/Gauge:
16 sts & 34 rows = 4” / 10cm in garter stitch after blocking. 4.5mm needles. By the end I had 3 100cm cables attached to each other using some connectors I got from my LYS which was really helpful. I didn't actually check my gauge, I was happy with the fabric I made, and as it didn't have to fit I wasn't too worried.
Difficulty:
For the most part is is really straight forward. Lots of i-cord to practice and picking up stitches. There is a brioche section with brioche increases and decreases, but there are instructions for doing garter ridges in this section instead. I like how the brioche looks though, and doing it in two colour and in the round seems, to me, to be easier than doing it in one colour or flat. I think this was the first time I'd done a i-cord bind off but it was a looooong one.
Worth Repeating:
I'm definitely making another one of these at some point, but probably a nice, colour coordinated one rather than another amazing paint box version.
Other Knits
So
I got one of those memory things on Facebook from a couple of years
ago where I'd just finished knitting a Fox Wedding shawl by Sylvia
McFadden. The shawl was still sat in my spare room, not quite
finished and I felt guilted into doing the last few steps. It is now
blocked at least, even if I haven't sewn in the ends. I should. It's
knit from some chunky baby alpaca so it's really soft and thick,
which would be perfect for the weather right now.
Handmade socks on
handmade cushion
I also knit up some Christmas socks using Dragon Hill Studio self striping yarn. Self striping yarn is magical, and knitting a tube is the easiest thing when you don't want to think to much given the state of everything. I've knit a pair of socks for Christmas the last couple of years which is a nice way to build up to Christmas (not that it normally needs the extra build up!) with something just for me, from me.
Baking
I love baking, which you've probably guessed, but I've always been of the “tastes better than it looks” class of bakers. Not much into the fancy decorations. For our anniversary my husband bought me Kimjoy's Christmas baking book, and everything in it is super cute, and felt fairly achievable. I didn't get to make as much as I might have liked, but I did make and decorate some gingery biscuits. The glass bellied robins didn't work out, small error in reading the wrong side of the thermometer, but I was happy with the rest. When we finally get to have Christmas with my family I'm going to try and do these again.
Mixed results on the biscuits.
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