2013 FO #15: Serenity-ish blanket

After what feels like months plugging away on the six-stitch garter-stitch border, this week I was finally able to cast off and block my Serenity blanket. Yesterday was beautiful and sunny and the baby is being delivered in three days (by pre-booked cesearean) so I decided to gentle block it outside in the sun to make sure that the blanket was dry and delivered to the mother before the infant was. I like the idea of a baby being delivered in to the world with an item that was crafted solely for them.

Lucy, of course, thought I'd placed it there just for her. I hope this new bub is not sensitive to cat hair!

I think I should really call it a Serenity-ish blanket because I heavily modified the finishing of the blanket to fit in with my very particular ideas of what a blanket should look like (square, big and concluded).

The original pattern had the lace and cable inside finishing halfway through a 'leaf'. There is no way I could have an incomplete leaf on a blanket of mine, so I continued the pattern so that the unfinished leaves were closed. The already closed leaves were continued to the border with a seven-stitch cable, and the inner section was then finished off with two purl rows.

I then did 20 rows of bee stitch (10 of the two-row repeats) before knitting another two purl rows and finishing it all off with a six-stitch garter-stitch border.

This resulted in a blanket that is big enough for mum to use it as a lap blanket if she wants as well as being the perfect size to wrap a baby in.

I am very pleased with this blanket - I think it's gorgeous and perfect for a summer baby and was fun to knit - the knitted present trifecta.

Pattern: Charts A, B and C of the Serenity blanket, then modifications as outlined above.

Yarn: Almost two full balls of Bendigo Woollen Mills Cotton 8-ply in Daffodil

Notes: Fun! A great project.

When bathed in sunshine, life itself is sunny.

Happy Monday! I know that Monday is supposed to be all bleurgh blah blah icky bleurgh but I had an excellent nine hours sleep last night and I feel fabulous so I just can't buy into it today. Plus, I had a very productive weekend and am feeling very smug and pleased with myself right now. I think I must be unbearable to spend time with at the moment, but I'm sure I'll be back to my cranky self tomorrow and growling about silly things again the way I should be behaving.

Firstly, I got a decent start on my Christmas gift socks. This pattern is lovely to knit and the yarn is a delight to knit with, so that was all fun.

Secondly, I finally started the border for my Serenity-ish blanket. It's going to be a long, slow process knitting those seven stitches back and forth but the finishing line is in sight. At last!

I think the bee stitch was a good choice…I guess there's not much I can do about it now. 

And finally, two weeks after I should have (it's been too cold to garden!) I got around to potting my zucchini seedlings. I did a bit of internet research on the best way to transplant zucchinis and it turns out that researching gardening on the internet when you don't know anything about gardening is a completely useless way to learn anything about gardening. There's so much contradictory information out there that I was more confused *after* reading about it than I was before. 

One website said to plant the seedlings together in a hill but, since I have no idea what a "hill" is in the context of gardening as opposed to wide open vistas and landscapes, I smooshed three plants together in the same hole.

Another website said that vine zucchinis should be planted where they can grow on a trellis. I have no idea if I have vine zucchinis and the seed packet provided me with no insight, so I planted another four seedlings against a trellis (and next to a solar light, because, well, I like solar lights. Is there anyone who doesn't like solar lights? They are awesome! All they need is sun and they make my courtyard look amazing. Effect with no effort is my kind of lighting).

In my uneducated view the trellis ones look the happiest so far. I'm not sure if happiness is an appropriate measure for plants but it's been 24 hours and nothing's died yet so I'm going to count this as a win. If everything goes well in 4-6 weeks I'll been able to eat food that I've actually grown myself in my garden like some sort of pioneer or settler. Fingers crossed!

PS: I saw this bag on a Christmas gift guide and I want want want. Christmas is about buying for other people not yourself, though, right? Those Louisa May Alcott and Jane Austen quote pieces of jewellery - gorgeous. 

A bit of good, a bit of bad

I have some good news and some bad news. The good news is that 10 days after planting them, my zucchini seeds look like this:

I have never had this much success with seeds before! This weekend I'm going to buy some more dirt and put some of them in some bigger pots and some of them in the garden. Soon (fingers crossed) there should be zucchinis for everyone! I even made zucchini fritters for lunch to celebrate, I was that excited. (yes, I recognise that is ridiculous. But still! Zucchinis!)

The other good news is that I finally picked a border for my Serenity blanket. I'm using Bee Stitch because I thought it looked very pretty on the Yarn Harlot's blanket.

The bad news is bad news for the blanket, though. I'm not sure if it's because of the cotton or the cabling or the weight of the blanket on my needles but I can't knit for more than a few minutes before my right hand starts seizing up. I don't want to cause any permanent damage so I keep stopping and resting and icing and it is taking forever to get any progress on this blanket done.

I've got four weeks till the baby is due and I am probably 65% of the way through. Unless this hand thing magically goes away, I think this is going to be a very close call!

Christmas knitting time!

It's the November 1 (already?), which means that it's the time of year to ... *dramatic pause* ... talk about Christmas knitting again! This year I am taking a zero-stress approach and only knitting three things. No additional Christmas knitting stress this year - I'm using knitting to reduce my stress instead!

The first is the Serenity blanket, which is technically not a Christmas gift but a blanket for a baby that's due on the 20th of December. You can't see it very clearly in this picture from the project's pattern page but the original pattern stopped the inner lace section by cutting though the leaves (Source of the photo).

I didn't like that so I continued the pattern so the leaves 'closed'. I really like how it looks now.

I just have to figure out what border I'm going to use now. Any suggestions?

The second gift is a pair of Rainy Day Socks for my stepmother, just like the ones I gave to Sam's grandma last year. I loved knitting them so much and they were so very quick and easy that this choice was a no-brainer.

Finally, and this should come as no surprise, a pair of plain boring huge stockinette socks for Sam. The colour is not quite as garish as it looks here - it's more of a dark burgundy that matches perfectly his old school colours. I know the school colours of his private boys school because still has a pair of boxer shorts that he got while attending there 10+ years ago. It seems strange to me that a) his high school gave out underwear and b) he still owns it, but apparently it's something boys schools do. Boys will be boys, I guess.

Of course while I was deciding what to make this year,

 Lucy was right there offering all the assistance she could.

Thanks Lucy. You're the best.

It always comes in threes

I have been a bit quiet on this old blog lately. In part it's because the two posts that have been dominating my traffic lately have absolutely nothing to do with knitting, which is a little bit disheartening when one writes a knitting blog, and also because, as the Yarn Harlot says, knitting blankets is pretty darn boring to write about (and read about, I imagine!)

But I did have an eventful weekend. Coming home at 2am on Saturday night, the key snapped off in the lock!  (By the way, that time is much too late for an old person like me to get home! I fell asleep the following night with my glasses and every light in the house on sitting up while holding a book. Sam thought I'd had a heart attack or something because it looked so bizarre)

How does that even happen? Red wine-induced super strength? 

In an attempt to get in through a secondary door a window pane got broken (goddam super strength! Note to self: stop drinking red wine) so for the last three days in what is possibly one of the most bogan actions I have ever taken I have personally brought down the value of the properties in my street by covering a window with a towel.

Sorry, neighbours! It was the red wine's fault. 

(Also, note to self - must clean window sills this weekend. Sorry about that too, neighbours.)

Anyway, after paying too many dollars to various tradies to fix these things, I got into my car to go to the library to pick up the latest Sue Grafton which was on the reserve shelf waiting for me (so excited to read it! Dreading the moment she gets to the letter Z)...and my car was dead! A fuse had blown and broken the immobiliser and so it had to get towed to the local Ford dealer and reset and whatever other magic they need to do to get it started again. I nearly cried when I realised that I was going to have to pay for that also (my iPad fund is now woefully depleted. I was getting so close to having a new beautiful toy :( ) so I did what had to be done to make me feel better...

..made from scratch and then ate a stack of pancakes served with natural yoghurt (for the calcium) and blueberry maple syrup (for the sugar and the antioxidents that conveniently cancel out the harmful effects of the sugar). They were fluffy, delicious and put everything back in context again. Things are just things! Money and iPads are nice but not having it/one is not the end of the world. As long as there are pancakes and pussycats in the world, everything will be okay.

In knitting news: this is what the blanket looks like now.

I have abandoned the written pattern and gone rogue with my own continuation of the centre design. I'm about to attach the second ball and I have my fingers and toes crossed I calculated all of my decreases and increases correctly. If this comes off, it will look fabulous. If it doesn't, there's always more pancakes...

Lace carnage: no Serenity here.

The weather in Melbourne has been cold, grey and windy. I have just spent four days at a wonderful conference that featured women who can actually write 'feminist scholar' or their resume. I would love to be able to do that! I admit I was a little bit starstruck and, in a conversation where a bunch of academics were talking intelligently about their research, my sole contribution was to compliment one of the leading scholars in my field on her earrings...urgh! But other than that it was great and I feel inspired and part of a community that is working to do good within the academy.

 

However, conferences are hard work and involve long days and lots and lots of thinking. I should have switched to something in stockinette but babies don't wait until their blanket is done so I kept plugging away at it every night after I got home...

 

 

..and of course I made a mistake! I missed a whole bunch of increases and dropped a stitch, so I ended up with a patch of plain knitting where there should be lace. I decided to drop the stitches...

 

.and knit them back up again with the appropriate holes. Unfortunately, the strands of yarn available were too short to add the two extra stitches per row. 

I reasoned that if I dropped down one whole leaf, that might provide the requisite length.

At first it seemed to be working fine.

But it looked so tight in comparison to the surrounding stitches that I knew I couldn't live with it in the finished blanket.

 

So I ended up with a pile of lace carnage.

 

While I knew that friends don't let friends knit lace when drink, I extend that to say that friends don't let friends knit lace before, during or after conferences.

 

This @*^%$ blanket !!!

Roadtrip Day 1: Driving, driving and more driving

The morning of the roadtrip dawned clear and crisp. We had planned to leave at 5am but due to unavoidable factors like my alarm having a snooze button and my total inability to operate early in the morning we ended up leaving closer to 6.30. The sun was well and truly up by the time we crossed the Bolte Bridge and left the city.

I had my camera out ready to take more photos but, seriously, unless you're really into cows, sheep and wide country vistas, driving through the countryside is really boring! After what felt like fifteen but was closer to three hours, we stopped at Gateway Village in Wodonga to stretch our legs.

Gateway Village is a lovely little artists' village that includes the above sculpture (Bonegilla) and art galleries, studios, cafes, theatres and really gorgeous pieces everywhere you look.

We didn't have enough time to really explore the space fully but I did go to the woodcraft shop. It was this wonderful store full of handmade wooden things - everything from bowls, ornaments and pens to children's toys. This stuff was seriously amazing and if I lived closer, every wedding and special birthday present for the rest of my life would be bought from there.

I was (relatively) restrained and only bought a kangaroo Christmas tree ornament for my Indian-American stepmother and a needle holder for me. It's a really pity that the shop doesn't have a website (or even a computer - my purchases were recorded in a paper ledger!). I would love to go there again.

And seriously, that's the only interesting thing that happened on the trip to Sydney. We stopped so the driver could refresh himself with a can of fizzy, sweet chemicals...

..I worked my way through Chart B of my Serenity blanket...

..and the driving continued until we reached our destination. The end.

Roadtripping: T minus 1

Last Tuesday, I left Melbourne on a roadtrip to Sydney. I was super excited because it is my first holiday of the year and I had reached that point where my mind was starting to go a bit melty. When you can't remember how to operate a cheese grater (hold, move cheese), then it's time to take a break!

As a knitter, one of the most important things to plan for any journey is which project and how many projects to take. I knew I'd be in a car for at least 20 hours so I wanted to take something relatively involved but without any loose needles. I knew the perfect project - a Serenity in the Bendy Cotton I bought a few weeks ago.

I  knew I had to get past the stage with DPNs (too much chance of dropping one while driving and being stuck without knitting until the next rest stop) so I cast on a week before I left to give me enough time to get to the circular needles. All was going smashingly until I started transferring the stitches to the circular and saw this:

A big hole where I'd messed up the increases. Because of the cabling that was in the middle of the lace, it was just too hard for me to fix and I almost cried as I unwound hours of work to get back to a mistake-free row.

So much smaller! But (luckily), still big enough to STREEETTTCCCHHHH around the circular needle and, shortly after this photo was taken, the blanket was packed up with its pattern, spare stitch markers and healthy travel-appropriate snacks and on its way to Sydney. 

Roadtrip!!