March 18, 2005
Four In A Row
Now that I finished the fourth row of the blankie, I'm starting to really love it! I kind of can't believe how fun all the colors look, even though they're sort of being placed rather randomly.
And I found out today that the Mom had an ultrasound and found out that the baby's a girl! She's really happy about that. I hope she's even happier when she gets to see the blankie!
I, however, am not happy when I have to look at the backside of the blankie and contemplate how much work all the ends are going to be. See?:
But as they say, where there's a will, there's a way.
And if you want to hear a few odd factoids about the blankie: Each square is five stitches and six rows, and gets made with a 32" piece of yarn. A row takes about 15 or 16 minutes - except, of course, for the color change row, which can take quite a bit longer, especially because I'm trying to make sure that the color repeats really appear random and yet somehow balance. There are twenty colors of yarn. I have completed 4 "rows" of blocks (24 rows of knitting) and I expect that the finished blankie will probably be 48 rows (of blocks) long. Sadly, that means about 70 more hours of knitting this blanket, and that's only allowing 16 minutes for the color changes rows, and it doesn't even account for the weaving of the ends... Actually, I am weaving some of the ends in as I go, so they merely need to be "verified" and then trimmed. And I hope that the whole process will get faster at it as I go along.
I don't think I'm going to take it to KNY for Boyz Night tomorrow, though. I'm kind of thinking that I'll start some sort of scarf as an alternative knitted gift for the would-have-been recipient of BCG, seeing as how he's sad that he ended up not getting the sweater, which is currently in Sweden.
Oh, and I wore my Mercury scarf yesterday, and got tons of compliments! That was nice, particularly since it is one of only two FO's which I actually wear; all the others have been gifted.
Posted by Jon at March 18, 2005 12:46 AMJust looking at all those ends makes me woozy. Good luck.
Posted by: Iris at March 18, 2005 07:12 AMJust a thought... why don't you sew a fleece backing onto it? Then you won't have to weave all the ends. Of course, that would be cheating, but I know I'd do it =) I made a baby blanket with squares four times that size and I was cross-eyed by the end of it.
Posted by: treefen at March 18, 2005 09:42 AMhttp://www.kinverknits.com/intarsia_lesson/intarsia_lesson_2.htm
I hope this helps.
Posted by: kat at March 18, 2005 09:52 AMI screamed like a stuck pig when I got to the picture of the yarn ends.
The weaving-in won't be much fun, but I think you'll qualify for some sort of Master of Intarsia certificate when you're through...
It looks really pretty, btw.
Posted by: Franklin at March 18, 2005 03:03 PM