Tuesday, February 08, 2011

Would have posted earlier, but...

...knitting a blanket takes a really long time. Therefore, there will be many pictures in this post. Unfortunately, none of them will include Lilah, who refuses to pose today.

Meet Lilah's "Big Girl" Blanket:

To show the scope and grandeur of this thing, I pinned it to the chain holding up our porch swing. You can see it's not a perfect square - more a rhombus. I'm cool with that.


The starting corner:


Spread out on the swing:


Folded:


Not that artfully draped:


Ending corner:


A side "corner":


Pattern: Winged it. I typed up more or less what I did on Ravelry. Basically, I started with three stitches and increased with a YO on each edge until I'd used almost five skeins, then decreased one stitch at each edge until I was done. I like Noro best in stockinette, just wanted an edging.

Needles: Size 8

Yarn: Noro Taiyo, colorway 6, 10 skeins (2200 yds)

Notes: Best television knitting ever. Will I ever knit a blanket again? No. My next non-baby blanket will be someday when I learn to crochet. Man, it takes a LONG time to knit a decent-sized blanket. Love the yarn. I've always loved Noro colors, but wasn't fond of the mohair content in Kureyon. This is wool/silk/cotton/nylon. Very soft, fairly light but warm. Noro has quirks. For a not-cheap yarn, there are an awful lot of knots. And sticks. And it's very thick-thin. But I think of it as part of the charm. Yes, knots are annoying, but what I love about Noro are the colors, and that's what I'm paying for. Think how expensive they'd have to make it if they actually bothered picking out the bits! Lilah loves it. She says it's "so cozy."

Reading: Rereading the Kay Scarpetta books. I remembered losing interest, and now I can pinpoint when and why: Blow Fly, when Cornwell switches to third person instead of Scarpetta's pov. Coincidentally (?) that's the same point at which she appears to start hating her characters. I need to get to book blogging!

Writing: I have been writing some. I know, wild, right? I am at a word count - 3800. See, even posting a word count. Cross your fingers it keeps going up.

Cooking: I'm more or less off cooking lately. Just not motivated and/or inspired. I did make a batch of granola, then another batch of granola. Oh, man, I just remembered I have to make ^&%&%* muffins for a preschool meeting tomorrow. Ugh.

I may post again! You just never know!

3 comments:

YarnThrower said...

Fun blanket -- and the best part is that Lilah loves it! Glad to hear you are writing! Hopefully your book will be finished by the time I have enough free time to read fiction again :-) It will be the first thing I select to read...and I"ll even buy it instead of checking it out of the library!!

GBK Gwyneth said...

It's beautiful!!! Congrats on finishing it!

turtlegirl76 said...

Wow. That's an amazing piece of work! I new right away it was Taiyo. That's the color I made my anthropologie capelet in. love it! It is cozy!