Ball band says:
85% Polyacryl / 15% Polyamid
Suggested needle size: 3.50 to 4.00mm.
Gauge: 22 sts/30 rows for 10cm.
This is a fuzzy, two-ply yarn, even though its WPI says it’s worsted weight; on a smaller needle, it will make a stiff, stand-alone, fabric.
32” HiyaHiya US#8/5.00mm circular needle - because its rounder-than-pointy tips won’t be as likely to catch in the fuzziness.
4.5 mm hook for crochet-hook cast-on as needed.
Center Square: cast on 100 sts.
Stitch marker at center.
Knit one row plain; decreases begin on second row.
Slip every first stitch knitwise; purl last stitch every row.
Double decrease at center: two consecutive k2tog.
STORY
When my sister informed me that my niece and her partner preferred blue and purple, I almost panicked. (Who am I kidding? I did panic!)
Last year, I’d plumbed the depths of my stash for blues and even begged some of others in our group in order to make my second Rambling Rows blanket in blues. I know I don’t have enough blue yarns to make another, and I’m about fed up with blue anyway.
So, I dug in my stash - moving boxes that are stacked five high to the 8’ cellar ceiling and three deep from my narrow walking space to the front foundation wall. Inspiration hit when I found the bins of yarn that my darling had mistakenly bought for me on one of his solo trips to visit his father and the rest of his extended family in Syria - in 1999, I think.
I had requested he bring me one bag (of ten balls) each of four different colours, and I’d given him the ball bands with snippets of the yarns I wanted.
Well, he didn’t go to the yarn store until a couple of days before his return flight, and - being a man - didn’t bother to even look at the ball bands and yarn bits I’d sent with him. He remembered four. Four what? Not so well remembered.
He bought four different colours - dark green, green, purple, and blue. Finer yarns than I usually play with and fuzzy to boot. Very pretty yarns as the fuzziness is sparkly, but … Did he buy one bag of each colour? No! They were cheap! (Bargain-hunter should be his middle name! But maybe he was missing me too. Three months is a long time away from home.) He needed to buy another piece of luggage to carry it all home. I thought he’d brought only 160 balls, but - since I still have 45 balls of purple - he must have bought even more than four bags of each colour. At any rate, I have 45 40g balls of purple and 32 of blue. 3.080 kilograms of yarn is more than enough to knit a queen-sized bed blanket.
Whew! I do not need to search my stash or ask others to search theirs, or - worse yet - buy new yarn to make it. I have until the wedding in October. If I leave off working on anything else, I should have it finished in plenty of time.
First square almost done; first ball also almost done. If I’m smart, I’ll weigh it before beginning the next one.
24-01-2017
Well, I have been known to weigh yarn before now, but this is the first time I’ve weighed an unused ball of yarn and found it lacking.
First ball was knit until only 22 stitches remained. I removed needle, stitch marker, and front-side marker and popped it on the scale - twice. 40g. As labeled.
Second ball, not yet worked, ball band removed … weighed in at 30 to 35 grams - the readout kept jumping back and forth before finally settling on 35g. I weighed it three or four times, because I couldn’t believe it was under! I foresee lots more weighing of yarn before long. I was not expecting to find any underweight! I guess I’ll weigh them all. :(
On the plus side, the first square is almost done. Add on the second ball, knit down to the last three stitches and begin the blue! … after weighing it.
Cuing up the Gypsy Kings or Sousa marches on YouTube really speeds up the knitting. :-)
First ball of blue weighed in at 45g.
First square is complete: 11.5” on a side.
First ball of blue is begun and will be the same size.
January 27, 2017
Made a plan! Second time I do that,
The first square measures ~11.5” on a side.
I find that blankets for queen sized beds are so close to square that I waste time trying to see which way is the right way, so this will be square to start with. Seven squares by seven squares = 49 squares.
Each a single solid colour? Some stripes of both colours? Some two different coloured triangles? Undecided. For now, I’m nearing the end of the second square.
January 30, 2017
Third square begun yesterday at Sunday Morning Knitting group.
The second square, blue, used less than one ball, by a couple of yards. Maybe the cast-on - a full 100 stitches for the first square - uses more yardage than when there are only 50 cast on? If so, then the squares that have no cast on stitches, only picked up, may use even less yardage per square? Time will tell.
January 30, 2017
Added photo of first two squares and beginning of third.
January 31, 2017
3rd square done; 4th begun. 4 AM.
February 2, 2017
Second blue square completed.
Cast on for fifth square/third purple one. 11:15 PM
February 3, 2017
Three new photos added.
The closeup is showing the join line where the blue was worked picking up stitches along the purple.
The two with the old wooden ruler are of four completed squares and - just barely showing - the fifth (a purple) on one side.
February 4, 2017
Fifth square finished; sixth begun. 5 AM.
So far, every ball of purple hasn’t been enough to finish one square, but every ball of blue has had somewhat more than enough yardage. It just might be that I have equal amounts of each colour after all! ;)
At around 5 PM, I came across my first knot in this yarn. Not bad - one knot in six balls!
February 7, 2017
7th square finished, 8th begun. ~9 PM
At some unfindable point of the 7th, I had one more stitch on one side of center than on the other. I fudged by doing a decrease on the back side just before the center marker. I seem to remember that there was an extra stitch after picking up stitches; maybe I neglected to decrease it while working the first row? Impossible for me to find the error, so fudged it was.
February 9, 2017
Just added a new graph of what I’m doing. Thanks to Cimmanon on Knitting Paradise for offering the link to the website where it can be done so easily! https://www.stitchfiddle.com/en
All I could wish for more is the ability to add a diagonal line in order to indicate the direction of the central decreases.
February 14, 2017
Square 8 (of 49) finished during Sunday’s knitting meeting. Photo added on Tuesday. Not much progress since Sunday, due to shovelling piles of snow. More snow due tonight, tomorrow and Thursday.
February 16, 2017
9th of 49 finished!!
10th begun. 9:50 PM
February 19, 2017
10th of 49 completed at knitting group.
11th begun this evening at McDonald’s.
Just more than 20% completed! I have to speed this up! If it takes on month per fifth, then I’ll need four more months to finish, and that means I’ll be carrying it around in the heat of summer. NO! I did that last summer. I do not want to do it again this year!!
Must knit more hours per day. Must concentrate on completion a.s.a.p.
February 20, 2017
Added photo of 9 done and 10th begun.
February 28, 2017
12th square completed! 37 to go.
There was a ‘half-knot’, i.e. a knot in one of the two plies; I knitted it in. There was a full knot near the end of the square; I cut and joined.
13th square begun.
March 3, 2017
13th completed; 14th begun.
March 11, 2017
14th finished; 15th begun.
At this rate, it’ll never be finished!
March 13, 2017
15th finished; 16th begun.
15th had 3rd knot, and - despite weighing 40g - still wasn’t enough to finish a whole square. No purple ball has been long enough to do what all the blue ones have!
March 14, 2017
I must be crazy.
I’ve never calculated how many stitches per whatever.
In a fit of insanity, I calculated - plain old arithmetic, since I can’t recall any better method, that each square has 5,079 stitches, and all 49 squares will come to 248,871 stitches.
Yes. I am definitely unbalanced.
Back to churning out those stitches!
March 15, 2017
16th finished; 17th begun.
I need to listen to more audio-books!
March 25, 2017
Well, I seem to have forgotten to take note of when I finished #17 and began #18. I finished #18 at Sunday Morning Knitting today, and Ginette took a photo. Unfortunately, we didn’t notice that the bottom two squares - 17 and 18 - don’t show in the picture at all! They are there, down about shin-high on me. ;)
19th square begun immediately after the photo was snapped.
March 29, 2017
19th square completed. This is the FIRST ball of purple that was long enough to make a whole square! About 24” leftover.
20th square begun.
April 3, 2017
20th finished; 21st begun.
April 23, 2017
21st finished; 22nd begun. Slow progress, because I allowed myself to be distracted by pretty orange yarn (construction-cone-orange, of course!) and a re-discovered pattern from long ago: http://www.ravelry.com/projects/JessicaJean/re-make-of-fi....
May 2, 2017
OK. It’s true. I cannot count! I have just cast on and knit two rows of square #26!! Somewhere, somehow, I managed to lose count! But that’s good. I am officially past the halfway point! Whooppee!!! I’m working on the outside set of squares.
May 11, 2017
Finished # 27; begun # 28.
27 had a knot - 4th or 5th so far; not bad!
May 27, 2017
Forgot to log the others. I’m now working on #30. It mostly gets worked on when I’m the passenger in the car; sometimes in the evening while watching TV.
June 4, 2017
A knot today in square #31, a purple one. This time, I had the wit to change to the partial ball I’ve been using to complete each purple square, so I’ll only have one join in this square. The last time I didn’t think to do that, and had two joins.
June 5, 2017
I thought I was so smart! I joined the partial ball and knitted on, but avoiding a second join on that square was not to be. A few rows later, I hit a knot in ithat/i ball too!! Since it’s fuzzy stuff, I didn’t even try ripping back those few rows. It’s just easier to splice again.
It’s said that knitting teaches patience; it also teaches humility.
June 25, 2017
Square #40 just begun!! Intermittent squares were done while in Cuba. Too hot to go out, so I sat in our room knitting for many hours.
July 2, 2017
#40 completed. #41 begun.
July 13, 2017
Began square #43! I’m on the fourth side!!
July 14, 2017
Square #44 begun.
July 17, 2017
Square #45 begun.
July 21, 2017
Began square # 46!! Three more to go!!
July 26, 2017
48th square begun. Nearly done!!
July 30, 2017
49th and final square begun!!
July 31, 2017
2:15 AM Last square FINISHED!!!!
Now, to decided what edge treatment to add.
August 1, 2017
I have decided to work the border one side at a time. Garter stitch stripes of two rows blue, two rows purple. I think it’ll be ten rows wide; I’m on row 4 of the first side.
11 squares with 50 stitches on each side of each square = pick up and knit 350 stitches on first edge. Each subsequent edge will be 5 stitches more than the previous, if I do 10 rows and work each side consecutively. I could work the opposite edge second and then the other two edges. We’ll see. It’s too hot to think right now!
August 9, 2017
LAST STITCH BOUND OFF!!! At about 3:45AM.
There are still some ends to weave in, but not many.
August 20, 2017
Last ends woven in!!! Final photos taken. All that’s left is a trip through the washer and dryer … and I’m nervous about that!
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