I spent a fair amount of the weekend looking for a lace pattern to tickle my fancy - something fairly open. Although I tried several things, nothing really suited me so I’m still searching. Time for me to get the Barbara Walker books out of the library again, I can see that!
I did get another baby blanket started and it’s coming out (and coming along) nicely.
I had started something entirely different out of my vast left-over Red Heart stash and it was going to be quite funky in assorted purples and greens. But after knitting about 5 inches of the thing I started wondering how this yarn would feel to a baby’s relatively tender skin if it felt this rough on mine? I think I knit another whole row while I was mulling it over and that was the end of that.
This yarn is Encore Colorspun and has been languishing in the stash for quite a while now. It’s a self-striping white/pastel and it is tons softer than the Red Heart. I feel much better about this going over a little sleeper and I won’t worry about it acting like sandpaper on baby’s skin.
The pattern is based on the standard diagonal garter stitch dishcloth (or washcloth or shawl, etc…) There’s a slip stitch border and the traditional eyelets around the perimeter. Instead of straight, unrelieved garter stitch for the body of the blanket though, there’s a garter stitch border surrounding a body of garter slip stitch (Row 1: *slip 1, knit 1*, Row 2: Knit). This produces a nice pattern with no rolling whatsoever. I’ve played with this idea before thinking it might come in handy some day. The slip stitch pattern does tend to compress the fabric somewhat so to keep things nice and soft I went to a size 10 (US) needle. The resulting fabric is drapey and comfortable without being hole-y :) Well…except at the eyelet border… There might be a further edging around the outside too. That will depend on how much yarn I have left when I finish with the blanket itself.
I also started another pair of socks,,,
Having decided that I didn’t want lacey socks this time, I started with the gull-wing-cable mentioned in Friday’s post. However, I found it to be a bit difficult at the fingering-weight-size1-needles scale. It was the cabling that was problematic to me - despite that being something I can do easily most times. I’m certain I’ll try it again eventually but this was almost impossible for my fat fingers to manage. After fumbling through a pattern repeat (which wound up looking like the dog’s breakfast) I frogged back to the ribbing and decided to try something else.
This is a variation on the tweed-mock-rib from the 365 Knitting patterns a year calendar. In the round, it goes like this:
On an even number of stitches:
Round 1: *Sl1, K1, YO, pass the slipped stitch over both the K1 and the YO.*
Round 2: Knit
Round 3: Knit
This version has an extra knit row. I played with that last night and decided I liked the way it looked. Besides, it tickles me to have a stitch pattern with an odd number of rounds :) I think this looks pretty nice but am concerned that it may produce too dense a fabric. I’ll work a little further before deciding anything. This is also some of the dyed merino - it feels wonderful and I have to say the color looks pretty good :)
And today, we have actual sun! Imagine that! I’m going to see about blocking poor Dragon Wings which I have putting off because of the wet weather (don’t want it to turn into Mildew Membranes after all…) More rain is predicted for later this week, but I’m hoping today and tomorrow will give me a little breather.
Hope your respective weeks are productive and enjoyable!
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Hm. That makes a good looking textured sock. And I’d love to see what it would do to a varigated yarn.
*sigh* More sock patterns laying in wait for me to acutally finish something.
Colleen - THe texture is vusually attractive but the fabric has less give than I’d like. I’m sill not sure what to do but I suspect that it’s going to get frogged.
Have I mentioned how much I hate frogging something?
Sigh…
Robbyn - go up a needle? Or a half needle? (I think there’s a mm size between US1 s and US2 s…
That might give it more room for the stitch to breathe, but of course means less cast on stitches as well.
Colleen - I’d rather stick with the 1s as I believe they’ll last better (there’s no nylon in this yarn) if they’re more tightly knit. Of course I could start over again with more stitches - or even on size 0s…
Will the blanket be going in the Dulaan bag? It looks lovely.
Ok, am I the first to ask. Would you please…give me the quick/down and dirty on the baby blanket pattern? I’ve been looking for something to knit my DS 9mos that looks/feels/warms like those cotton thermal woven blankets and your blanket looks like just the ticket. Having never made a dishcloth (I’m a sponge girl), I don’t know where to begin.
Love your blog, thanks for everything.
Hi Abi - No, this one is a gift - but I may make a couple for the Dulaan bag if I can convince myself this is at least as practical as hats, mittens and socks.
Hi Angie :) - Thanks and everything. I’m glad you’re enjoying the blog :)
The blanket is really, really simple and I’ll talk about how to do it on tomorrow’s blog post. FUnny you should mention the resemblance to a cotton, thermal blanket - I had that same thought!
