Small Projects

I've been working on a few small projects. First, a few test knit for Cedar Box Knits. A pair of kids mittens with an easy and cute fair isle pattern.

Project page found here. Pattern is not yet available.

I knit a hat for charity, Foliage from Knitty. My gauge was at an awkward place between bulky and worsted. I think I could've made it a little shorter, but I don't see anything wrong with someone being able to cover their forehead and ears either.

I also made a new reusable swiffer wet jet pad because I haven't been able to find the other one I made since we moved. This one is simpler, but really well designed. Cortez helped me take a picture.

I've finished my second Cthulu commanded project, and will be blocking it as soon as I get to the hardware store for some wire to make blocking possible. I don't want to give anything away yet, but it's acrylic and lace so I will be steaming it thoroughly!

Cthulu Commands Me!

I made a Cthulu dice bag a few months into my knitting career. It was one of the first few things I've done with stranded knitting, and the floats are a little too tight. I still love it, but it ripples a bit in between the little colorwork Cthulu. Nevertheless, it is quite serviceable as a bag.

Now that I'm finished with my giant blanket, I've felt like I have no projects to do despite having several project requests from others and a few planned for myself. To combat this, I decided to pick a few patterns that I can make with yarn from my stash, write the names down on little pieces of paper, fold them up, and place them in the bag.

Then, I mixed them all up and picked one. Drum roll please!

A hat for Chatham! He asked me if I could design a hat based on a game called Conway's Game of Life. The game is based on a mathematical equation that determines the movement of squares across a grid based on the surrounding squares. The player creates a starting grid, and then the rest of it is simulated entirely based on an equation. One of the patterns that emerges from this equation is a Glider. Chatham graphed a glider with a 4 stage repeat. The first repeat is on the left, fourth one on the right, and then they start over again with the first one on the left.

I'm knitting the hat in white and then duplicate stitching the gliders on afterward. This means I can show him what the hat looks like, and we can try several different configurations without any trouble. It's a blank canvas of hat!

Other Things Finished While Knitting the Blanket

I finished several small projects while I was working on my blanket to break up the project. I showed you the Blizzard Winds cowl, but I also knit a pair of booties, a few hats, and a quarter of a mitten.

The booties were a test knit and came out absolutely adorable. I don't have a specific recipient in mind right now, but there's a matching hat that I think I'll make as a premade baby gift.

Then, There was a versatile top down hat pattern that I test knit. I picked all of the first hat's characteristics, and used dice to decide the second hat's attributes. The first one is an aran weight hat with pretty spirals and a ribbed bottom.

The second one was chosen completely by dice rolls. Fingering weight, baby size, a block motif (that's obscured by the yarn, unfortunately), and a seed stitch border.

I started a third hat while I was knitting the blanket, and finished it the same day as the blanket. It was a test knit for an ebook with several other hats, and I think it turned out really cute. It doesn't exactly fit me because it's a child's large size, but I wanted to feature the top and it was only visible while being worn.

The quarter of a mitten is now a whole mitten, waiting for it's mate!

Oh, and I can't forget one final tiny lil thing.

The first hexipuff in my second blanket. That's right, I started my second blanket before I even finished my first. This project is intended to be knit as a little side project whenever I feel like it, instead of all at once in a rush. It's puffy and squishy and I need to make some more socks so I can have sock leftovers to make into hexipuffs!

Templeton Square Blanket

HUZZAH! I have finished my blanket and taken some fantastic pictures! This post is picture heavy, so if you have a slow computer it might take a while to load. First thing I had to do was lock the cats outside so I could get a few pictures for the contest without their help.

I really absolutely love it. I think the border really pulls the whole thing together. I almost wish I'd made it bigger, but considering how long it took to knit the two inches of border that are there I'm not sure I would've finished the blanket EVER if I were set on making it bigger.

There are lots of interesting ways to take pictures of the blanket. This one also features Chatham's LEGO bricks, oops!

I thought these springtime colors were particularly appropriate today since it's 80°. Of course I would finish it on the first warm day of the year. A few more detail shots:

Now, for a little math. Each square had 4,200 stitches in it. All of the squares together is 176,400 stitches. The border had 24,200 stitches. So, in total there are 200,600 stitches in my blanket. I did all of the squares in 48 days, and then the border took me another 4 days. I made a queen size blanket in 52 days. I think that's pretty darn impressive.

42 Squares Finished!

There it is! All squares complete! Now I just have to knit a few strips of garter stitch, and I'll be done. I'm looking forward to a finished product. I have 5 days left to finish, and I'm getting very close. I'm also looking forward to doing a completely unrelated project. ANYTHING that's not a templeton square because as much as I love them, I am tired of them. I have the pattern memorized, and I think it might be fun to test whether or not I remember it in a few months. For now, though, I'm going to take a break from big projects and whip out a few quick instant gratification knits.

36 Squares

I have finished the dark purple! I only have 6 more squares to knit! I am so going to make it in time!

As always on this blog, you can click the picture to make it larger. I finally put it on the bed to see how it looks. It is almost wide enough, and with the last set of squares along the top, I think it will be long enough too! Then, of course, the border will make it just the right size. I'm getting close enough to the end that my motivation is picking back up.

I'm hoping to finish the last set of six squares on the 8th, so I'll have a week to add the border and sew all the ends in. I'm really glad I've been attaching them as I go along, I don't think I'd have time to sew them all together if I'd waited.