I have been sucked back into blankie's irresistible clutches.
After my first blankie's regimented structure I was yearning for something more whimsical. I remembered my agonizing squares where the miters were in all different directions.
A perfect starting point for an anything goes blanket.
Not sure where this is going but I am enjoying the ride.
-Lindsey
It is finally finished!
Blankie has been a constant companion. My go-to travel project - I never realized how constant until my sister said I had to finish it soon so she could see a new project next thanksgiving.
It was cool to look back and see blankie and Sabrina grow together.
Finishing blankie was like finishing a good book. Gratifying, but bitter sweet.
I think I need some instant gratification projects now. Any suggestions?
-Lindsey
May was a pretty magical month in our world. Weather-wise things still look pretty stable and uniform. One little splash of orange was our only excitement.
But a month ago today, on May 20th, I got to put in an extra special square to mark the arrival of our little Johan Paul.
It was an incredible experience, thankfully much less dramatic than Mateo's arrival, and ever since we've been enjoying getting to know our new sweet little brother.
We've been able to snuggle him in hand knits, since the weather is still pretty mild.
(this is mon petit bébe knit in koigu kpppm)
(baby tee in malabrigo sock)
We've finally gotten to enjoy a finished hexagon blankie
and just hang out and enjoy being a family of four.
I hope your May was just as magical!
-claire
I finished the last square!
81 squares total.
After a lot of years, the knitting is finished.
I went back to find the first post and realized that if I weave in all the ends and sew it together by June 28th it will be 6 years.
Nothing like a crazy deadline to shoot for!
So what's your longest running project? This is definitely mine.
-Lindsey
Totally unexpectedly, though it took me almost three years to finish my hexagon blankie, once I finally did I was immediately hankering for another big crochet project. Luckily the ever-tempting Melissa talked me into undertaking the weather blanket with her and I'm proud to say that I've been keeping up quite well so far.
Here we are through April already. As you can see, our weather here in Bavaria is extremely predictable, orderly and stable (as one would expect German weather should be). My colors are pretty steady- one might even say boring after making TWELVE identical squares in a row.
It is still hard for me to get used to no longer living with the mood swings of midwestern weather, as you so colorfully see in Melissa's blanket. Alas, I'm really enjoying the project and am very proud that I've actually been keeping up with it so far. We'll see how that goes once baby brother decides to arrive...
BUT if it weren't enough to be committed to daily crocheted temperature squares (in all honestly, I usually wait about 4 days and then do a little group together) I somehow decided I need to take on yet another giant crochet blanket. This one full sized! And for me! I can't remember the last time I made something for myself. I'm using the the Circle-in-a-Square pattern as a jumping off point in yummy DROPS Nepal Alpaca yarn.
One thing I've learned by how much I'm enjoying the weather blanket, and how loooooooong it took me to finish the hexagon blanket or (ahem) work on blankie, is that I do best when I don't have to determine colors for each piece as I go. It always took me so much longer to decide on what color combinations come next than it did for me to actually crochet/knit the thing. And if the light wasn't right or it was too late at night I didn't even feel like I could work on the darned thing.
So my anal side kicked into full gear to spend a ludicrous amount of time planning and mapping out and calculating a gameplan for this blanket.
It took a ridiculously long amount of time and was rather absurd the lengths I went to,
but now that I have a plan, crocheting this thing is a joy and a breeze. I'm sure I'll find bits that bug me as I go along but I guess I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.
So there I am, totally hooked on crocheting, I'd have never thought it possible. Is there anything that's gotten you hooked lately?
-claire
for the past month or so my constant crafting companion has been blankie. finishing up that long lingering solid square and all that sashing had me so excited to start making little squares again, i can not even tell you... the call of the blankie has been strong!
today i looked at the calendar and realized that it is in fact august 23rd, and the fundraiser for which i am crocheting a ripple afghan is less than a month away!
time to step away from those sweet little squares and get my ripple back in gear!
i'm probably half-way there, so i'm not too worried about the deadline at this point.
pip says, "mrrrow. i don't care what you work on, just hurry up and sit down so i can sit on you!"
-melissa
i am currently in the midst of an epic western road trip... i promise to write more about it when i get home and have time to sort through all my photos. but today something happened that i just had to blog about. we were leaving jackson, wy and driving to bozeman, mt. brian was driving and i was working on a mini square for blankie. i chose the yarn, for no particular reason, when the scenery looked like this:
so imagine my surprise when i looked down and saw that i was knitting this:
while we were driving through this:
kismet. perfection. end scene.
-melissa
this week my friend blair and i took our kids to kansas city for a little summer road trip fun! we visited legoland discovery center, the sealife aquarium, and the historic union station, as well as taking many swims in the hotel pool:
fun was had by all!!
and what were blair and i up to during the downtime?
hotel crafting!!
i was working on putting together all the finished pieces of blankie, 6 of the 9 squares are all knit up, but there was that pesky red sashing still to go. it's not the fastest or most interesting parts of the project, so it was good that for the most part i was trapped in a car with nothing better to do but knit yards and yards of garter stitch!
even after the car ride i still had a couple rows left to finish at home:
finally today i was finished (well finished with *this* part... there's still lots of knitting to go!). all the completed squares are connected and all ends are woven in!
here it is in all it's glory, hanging out with my crazy overgrown garden! it is making me so so happy to see blankie reach this point! all those nice tidy right angles are making the neurotic crafter in me sigh with relief:
humor me with just one more photo, i'm feeling pretty darned accomplished today!
a big thanks to blair for being such a driving superstar and giving me all that knitting time in the car!
-melissa
my week at the lake was beyond relaxing.
words and photos can not do it justice.
there was also knitting to be knit while relaxing at the lake. i worked a bit on my latest ripple afghan, but mostly worked on blankie.
what?
blankie?!?
what is this ghost of a project?!?
ahem. you *may* remember back in february of 2009 when i started a sock yarn blanket? no? that's okay, i'm not offended, you can click here for the post if you feel you'd like to.
it turns out i've been working on this one solid section of blankie for well over a year... the first blog reference i can find to it is in april of 2013 and even then i was speaking of, "dusting it off." so for at least a year and a half blankie has languished in a mostly ignored state.
poor blankie.
finally i had had enough! i brought the solid square with me and spent all week working away on it, and on the drive home finished the last stitch on the most drawn out square of all time...
it doesn't look like much, does it? i know... but please take a moment to appreciate the subtle shading of the yarn and the fanciful angles of the mitered squares... okay, i know, it's boring... but with it's completion i have now made six of the nine squares of my blankie:
and that, to me at least, is not boring at all! i am recharged! bring it blankie!!! i am super excited to knit your sweet little squares again!!!
-melissa
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