a finished blanket

The blanket's done, blocked and drying now. It looks very nice now that the lace pattern has opened up. Final size after blocking? 36" x 40 with less than a metre of yarn left. Despite my false starts, it has finished very nicely and I'm very pleased. Tomorrow I'll take some better pictures to show the whole blanket.

The next baby blanket will be from the Noro I bought a couple of days ago. I've been pondering what kind of pattern would be best for this very colourful yarn, and have settled on this Cielo blanket by Lisa Desseault. A simple pattern to let the yarn shine! Hard to visualize, so I plan to cast on a knit a few repeats to see how it looks - an extra large patterned gauge swatch, I suppose.

Progress also continues on my first Red Rocket sock. I've been taking it slowly, trying to be very careful to follow the pattern without error. I've knit the leg and heel flap, turned the heel and am 10 rows into the gusset. After the short rows of the heel turn the instructions say "18 heel sts rem." And then the set-up round for the gusset accounts for only 16 sts from the heel. I've read it over and over again but can't make sense of it, so I'm concluding the set-up round is wrong. Won't make much difference - just one more decrease round on the gusset to bring me to the correct number of stitches for the foot. It's disconcerting, that's all.

visiting Ottawa

Shame the weather wasn't better. Because the tulips are spectacular. Bed after bed of fully blooming tulips in every colour of the rainbow. During WWII, while Mom lived in Nazi-occupied Holland the Dutch Royal family was evacuated to Canada. And while here, Queen Juliana gave birth to Princess Margriet. As a thank you present she sent 100,000 tulip bulbs to the city of Ottawa - laying the foundation for Ottawa's annual tulip festival.

The chilly temperatures gave Edward a chance to try his new sweater - the sweater started by Mom, the sweater I finished after Mom's passing. It's still big for him - so it will fit next fall and winter - but it looks great on him. The colour suits him to a T. I couldn't be happier with that little sweater.

While in Ottawa we visited Knit-Knackers on the main floor of an old house off Bank Street in Ottawa. Everywhere you look is fabulous yarn. Good thing I don't live in Ottawa - there'd be many lost hours spent there. What'd I get? Two large skeins of blue/green handspun - eek, me knitting handspun!?!! My sister insisted the colours were too beautiful to resist. And several skeins of Noro Iro. More baby blankets for the Warm Hands Network in the queue now. I avoided the siren call of the odd ball bin - can't beat those bargains, but it's heartbreak to fall in love with something only to find there isn't enough to knit anything. Fun to look at everything; my sister and sister-in-law enjoyed it too. All the while Edward crawled around in his hand knit sweater and hand knit socks, playing with a small ball of Baby Alpaca and charming everyone in the store.

road trip

The blanket is almost as far as it was before and I'm much happier with it now. The first half isn't so blandly uniform, and there won't be a stark mismatch at the centre this way.

This morning my sister and I head to Ottawa for a couple days. Too bad the weather is not co-operating - unseasonably cold, rainy and thunderstorms. Not exactly the best weather for strolling and enjoying the Tulip Festival. So, just in case, I've programmed the addresses of a few Ottawa area yarn stores into the GPS.

And figuring that we'll be sharing the driving, I've packed my sock-knitting. Pretty sure I can finish the leg, knit the heel flap and turn the heel in a 5 hour drive.

yesterday I lied

Yesterday I wrote "Guess I'll keep going and see how it looks when it's all done." Turns out, that was a lie. Sorry, but the complete colour change halfway through the blanket was too much for me. After three pattern repeats of the second skein I had to face the music. I spent the second period of the Detroit-Anaheim game unraveling the entire thing. And then spent the third period starting over alternating skeins every two rows.

Nicer now, don't you think?

a strange thing happened

... when I started the second skein. Suddenly there's a lot more colour transitioning in my knitting. Honestly, the skeins appeared to match when I bought them - same yarn, same colourway, bought at the same time from the same vendor. Weird, huh?

It's an interesting break from the blandness of a few days ago. Guess I'll keep going and see how it looks when it's all done. If I really don't like it then, I can always rip the whole thing out and reknit. By alternating a couple of rows from skein one, then a couple from skein two, I could spread the colours out more evenly. But for now, I'm just going to carry on and see what develops.

fingers crossed

"It looks exactly like the picture" Gavin exclaimed as I staged my in progress sock on the open pattern book. Which I love to hear, because that's the point, isn't it? But which was exclaimed in a tone that implied a fair bit of surprise, unfortunately.

But he's right, I've been paying close attention to the pattern, tinking back to fix even the tiniest of errors. So far, so good. Fingers crossed as I approach the heel, because here's where it's going to get tricky!

easiest ever

While work progresses slowly on the complicated socks, I've cast on some mindless knitting on another set of needles. So I've started Janice's Easiest Ever Lacy Blanket. Now that I'm several repeats into the blanket, I'll admit it - it really is the easiest ever lacy blanket. Which makes it embarrassing to admit that I messed up my first try, ripped out after 10 rows and started again. With this pattern I wanted something quite traditional, vintage even. With the thought that a new mother may see this blanket and think, I had a blanket just like this when I was small!

The yarn is Dream in Color Classy in a colourway called GoGo Grassy. Although lovely to knit, this colourway is disappointingly bland. Not nearly as exciting as the purple colourway from last week. Nonetheless, it's still pretty and it's working up into a charming little blanket.