The biggest WIP is finished!

Tags

blanket, colour, design, knitting, leftovers, Lizard Ridge, stripes

At long last all 56 pieces of the Lizard Ridge blanket have been sewn together. Just in time for winter here in the southern hemisphere. 

It’s perfect for that little bit of extra warmth. While it is very snuggly for some solo couch knitting, it’s large enough for two.

I’m very pleased I made this from 4-ply/fingering weight yarn as we get warmth but no bulk.

Although I hadn’t been looking forward to seaming all the pieces together, once I started it was half as bad as expected.

My Skinny Lizard blanket is here on Ravelry with full details of all the yarns used.

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The biggest WIP

Tags

blanket, colour, design, knitting, Lizard Ridge, stripes

Well the end is certainly in sight! I have knitted all 56 pieces of the Lizard Ridge blanket I started 18 months ago.

Mr Soknitsome offered a while back to arrange the pieces for me when it came to putting the blanket together. I’d laid the pieces out in piles of matching or closely matching blocks. Mr Soknitsome’s a mathematician and after counting various piles and discovering that nothing worked exactly with the finished size of seven rows by eight columns, I was sent out the room while he figured out a different system…

I got called back in to see the blocks laid out in colours with the few lighter ones towards the centre. Needless to say, I’m very pleased with the result.

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The post I shouldn’t be writing

Tags

beach, blanket, holiday, Lizard Ridge, stripes, Sydney

Why?

Because right now Mr Soknitsome and I should be enjoying a holiday on Lord Howe Island, a UNESCO World Heritage Site of global natural significance, lying in the Tasman Sea between Australia and New Zealand.

So why aren’t we enjoying our holiday?

It’s not a question of enjoying ourselves – there’s simply no holiday!

Things started well. We took off on the 90-minute flight to Lord Howe Island last Friday. We’d almost reached the island and then the pilot had us in a holding pattern for a good 30 minutes waiting to see if the weather would improve. It didn’t so we flew to Port Macquarie for refuelling and landed back in Sydney 5 1/4 hours after take-off.

Worse was to come.

There was no flight available until Sunday morning. Saturday passed slowly. We couldn’t really settle to anything. We weren’t meant to be at home.

Up bright and early on Sunday morning we headed off to the airport for our 7 am flight. Boarding was delayed twice. Not a good sign. Mr Soknitsome had found detailed weather forecasts on the bureau of meteorology’s website indicating low cloud. At 8 am our flight and the following one were cancelled. The weather wasn’t expected to improve.

Worse was to come.

Airline staff were saying we might be able to fly out on Wednesday. Yes, five days into our week’s holiday, we might be able to fly…

Holiday cancelled.

Back at home in Sydney we grudgingly unpacked (we weren’t meant to be at home), and did some grocery shopping to fill the empty fridge (because we weren’t meant to be there).  

Ironically, the weather was lovely in Sydney so we walked over to Elizabeth Bay where we enjoyed an ice-cream and the view and tried not to complain about the holiday that wasn’t.

I even did some of my holiday knitting. I’d decided to make a few more pieces for the 4-ply weight Lizard Ridge blanket I’m making. Here’s what I knitted at the airport, on the flight, and on the beach by the sea…

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More European Knitting

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blanket, Cologne, Germany, Lana Grossa, Lizard Ridge, socks, stripes, travel, yarn

There were times when I was by myself in Cologne so of course I cracked on with some knitting and not just socks and shawls. I had to buy some more grey for the Lizard Ridge blanket (pattern by Laura Aylor) I’ve started. I am now on my 28th pair of socks which sounds like quite a few pairs but really isn’t enough when it comes to leftovers. This was easily remedied, however, as you can buy Regia sock wool in local department stores and Lana Grossa’s Meilenweit (similar yarn) in many local yarn shops.

Here are the pieces I managed during our European trip. Some of them were knitted during the car journey to and from the north of Germany to see Mr Soknitsome’s sister. Mr Soknitsome shares one trait with many Germans. He likes to drive fast on the Autobahn. When he does that, I like to concentrate on my knitting!

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This could be the start of something big…

Tags

AIWCC, blanket, charity, Knitters Guild, Lizard Ridge, Noro, Ravelry, stripes, yarn

I’ve knitted 23 pairs of socks to date. Most of these pairs have used significantly less than 100g of yarn. I’ve been saving the remains for emergency repairs and darning but I don’t really envisage using them for such (particularly as my own pairs have had the heels reinforced prior to wear). I thought it would be nice to use the leftovers in a blanket. Ravelry has hundreds of projects, ranging from rows of stripes to patchwork squares and even stuff-as-you-go hexagons.

Before browsing too much, I drew up a shortlist of criteria that would hopefully help me decide which kind of scrap blanket would work for me:

• Work in pieces to enable a good arrangement of colours
• Project should be easy to carry around
• Add in a neutral colour to balance some of the highly variegated yarns

Finally, I decided on making a Lizard Ridge blanket (pattern by Laura Aylor), using grey as one of the striping colours and all my leftovers for the contrast. Lizard Ridge is knitted in worsted-weight Noro yarn so each square is larger than one you’d get using 4-ply/fingering wool. I started off by knitting a square that was one-repeat (i.e. about a third) wider. It seemed a bit on the floppy side. I decided to knit as written and just make more squares. I was fortunate enough to sit next to Caitriona at December’s Knitters’ Guild meeting and she commented on her dislike of sewing together her Lizard Ridge blanket. It made me think. Seriously. About all the squares I would need… I recalled the fund-raising charity blanket that the Stitch ‘n’ Bitch group at the AIWCC made (I was one of the ‘lucky’ ones involved in its assembly)…

• Should I start all over again and knit bigger squares?
• Should I just bite the bullet and resign myself to a lot of sewing-up?

The solution is a compromise of sorts – my squares are now rectangles. They are still 43 stitches wide, as in the pattern, but they feature six not four sets of stripes.

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