This occasion feels so momentous to me I wish I could mark it with a drum roll or fireworks or something loud and extraordinary. I am so excited to say that I have finished my biggest project ever - a full-size adult blanket!
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| It's huge! |
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| Did you get the shot? |
I started this blanket on New Year's Day 2010, which means it's taken me two and half years almost exactly to finish it (!!!). That seems like a long time but this blanket is both big and very fiddly.
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| Warm and cuddly enough for even the manliest man to wear as a shawl |
It's the April project from Elizabeth Zimmermann's Knitter's Almanac, Mystery Blanket: Weaving and it is *a lot* more complicated than Ms Zimmerman would have you believe. The knitting of the squares is quite easy and fun - each one took me about two hours and they were done pretty quickly. BUT after you've knit the squares, they all need to be grafted together. Then once you've grafted them together, you need to pick up the corner stitches (the black square) and then knit 5 rows of 20 stitches - very awkward when your blanket weighs almost a kilo! This process leaves a gaping hole at each corner, which needs to be tightened. Did I mention that each square generates a minimum of six ends to weave in? And there's 24 squares? I estimate that the finishing took me at least as long as knitting the squares did and was much less enjoyable. I love how the blanket looks but if I were to make it again I would to the increase rows all the way to the end of the squares, omitting the need to 'fill in' the corners. That said, I think I did a pretty good job of fixing all the gaps:
I love this blanket. It's big and warm and soft and looks fantastic on my couch. The Bendigo Woollen Mills Rustic 12-ply is hand wash only but I doubt I'll be washing it very often, so that shouldn't be an issue.
Now I just need to convince my cat to let me use it...
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