Finished Object: EZ's Garter Stitch Blanket

Elizabeth Zimmermann's Garter Stitch Blanket (Opinionated Knitter and another magazine) is knit in four mitered pieces and then sewn together. I decided to update the colors to chocolate brown and robin's egg blue for a stylish little boy's blanket. Lion Brand Woolease fit the bill on color, easy care, and price. I took these pieces with me on a trip to California last fall thinking that the pieces would be very portable. They ended up being very portable, since I didn't get much done on them!

This blanket has been staring at me reproachfully for a year now. Or should I say the PIECES have been staring at me. I knit this for a special baby thinking "oh, a garter stitch blanket, I can finish that in no time!" Needless to say, I had to hurriedly switch to something else at the last minute to make the deadline. In my defense, I did go ahead and finish the knitting, but the seaming looked hard, so there was always time for that another day...One year later...Now I have two things on the needles, the beautiful white Michael Kors sweater from last year's Vogue Knitting Fall 2006 cover, and a little sweater for my 8-year old who claims I never knit anything for him. So with all of this going on, I find out my father has cancer and will need chemo. Having just gone through this with my mother, I know he will need something warm to cover up with during the chemo treatments. Of course, he needs an afghan, and I just bought the Rambling Rows pattern from LionBrand the other day.


But I've got 2 sweaters on the needles and blanket pieces that I keep having to shake the dust off of. Now I'm stressed and guilty. So, I divide and conquer (I originally typed 'concur', I think my brain is making fun of me). I hurriedly finish the last 10 rows on the back piece of the Michael Kors sweater and bind off. Good stopping point.


Then, I send the kids outside to play, lay out the pieces of the EZ blanket on the living room floor and start seaming. Hmm, this wasn't nearly as difficult as I thought it would be, but it still took two hours. There. Done. But wait, I'm actually ahead! I have a baby gift and no baby to give it to! Woo hoo!

Woo hoo! First pair of socks

These are the Rhiannon sock pattern from Cookie A.'s website. I knit them in cream for kilt hose for my other obsession, er, hobby, piping. I used Jawoll sock yarn which
handily comes with a little spool of matching reinforcing thread in every ball. This was my first pair of socks that I've ever knit, discounting a quickie set of elf booties for my son's Christmas play last year.

The pattern has two awkward rows that take up to an hour to do because you're purling TBL through 4 stitches then purling them again on the front. With tiny little needles. Save up your curse words for those rows, you'll need them! Also, I started the cuff 3 different times because it ended up enormous and eventually threw the tape measure in the trash and made the smallest size cuff and the medium-ish size calf and ankle. The cuff is still a little big, but I'll be wearing flashes (like sock garters) with them, anyway.

It's finished and I hate it

Well, I finished my Debbie Bliss Sleeveless Crossover. Although I made gauge and followed the pattern exactly, it does not fit like the picture shows. It is way too short to be tied at the waist (it needs to be another 2-3" long to look like the picture), and the ribbed collar which took me 3 evenings to complete is so heavy that it pulls the sweater down my back. Looking back, I should have done the extra step of laying the measurements down on a sweater that I liked to see what the result would be. Also, I guess I should have figured that a ribbed collar in cotton yarn was going to be really heavy. Oh well, it's a learning experience and the yarn was on sale, so I'm not completely devastated.

Went and dunnit

Well, here I am with a knitting blog. Writing my own raw html for http://www.brennanfamily.info/michelle/knitting.html became so time consuming that I stopped documenting my knitted items. Time to ride on someone else's code now.

OTN: Debblie Bliss Sleeveless Crossover from Wish You Were Here pamphlet in red DB Cotton Cashmere that I scored on sale at Herrshner's a few months back. It calls for a suede belt, not sure what I'm going to do about that yet, probably depends on how much yarn I have leftover (grin). Also, I'm anticipating the installation of lots of little plastic snaps to keep everything where it needs to be!