Friday, March 7, 2014

Blanket of doom

I'd like it to be noted that I initially had written out an awesome post, then then internet ate it. I totally got all whiney. I'm sure facebook had a ton of pity for my rant. SO TAKE TWO and if the internet eats this one I'm going to post pictures of me all crying

A little over a year ago I bought 5 skeins of Bernat's Baby Coordinates in soft grey. I had this lofty notion that in the 2 months before we moved I'd figure out how to knit more than basic stockinette stitch and pump it out in no time. Oh how naive I was in my youtful folly. The rose colored glasses were firmly affixed to my face.

Here is the pattern I figured I was awesome enough to make:
Exhibit A
I'm fairly certain the adorableness of that little girl was totally meant to distract me from the fact that I knew nothing about knitting and lull me into the belief that this "easy" pattern was well within my scope. After all I did know which end of the needles to knit with!

That yarn slowly but surely became the bane of my existence. Casting on was a serious chore, I had no idea what a psso was but I was so certain it would be my friend! It was just repetition right? After finally casting everything on, I managed not to do the yarn overs. Slowly but surely my blanket became more and more narrow. Frog. Youtubed yarn overs, started again, at some point I missed a stitch because the concept of counting when you are doing any sort of lace-like knitting hadn't been discovered. Frog. Forget where I was in the pattern and don't have a grasp of how stitches are supposed to look. FROG. This was getting ridiculous. I changed to a basic fan and feather pattern and frogfrogfrogfrog. It was like the buffet at a cajun mardi gras festival. The yarn was irritatingly tossed into the back of my tiny box of yarn. 

September rolled around and I suddenly had a freakish desire to learn how to sew and I figured I shouldn't start a new hobby if I hadn't done anything with my current hobby I'd already invested money into. BACK TO THE BLANKET.  I finally found the Feathered Baby Blanket on Ravelry and nearly wept when I saw that it wasn't a ton of pattern rows. I'd have a break! And so it began. 

Of course I misread the pattern and instead of it being all lacey with a band like so:

Mine had 1 row of feather and fan instead of a bunch:


In all reality I liked it. I figured if I was going to make a mistake it was something easily applied to the rest of the blanket and it made for a bit more of a solid blanket with texture. So I happily kept on going! From September to November I worked on the blanket off and on. I was very happy with how it was looking and then on the 10th pattern repeat I suddenly realized there was something amiss...

WHERE DID THE FAN GO?!?!
Yup I had miscounted and the Right Side was now the Wrong side. I had a moment of disbelieving angst before I thought, hey, this could work! If I did 8 sets facing the opposite side, I'd just have to make sure I skipped a row at the 17th pattern repeat but it would work and look like it was on purpose! BWAHAHAHAHA i felt like an evil genius.

Then December rolled around and the frantic Christmas knitting began. Blanket got shelved into a nice comfortable basket to await my attention. Of course this meant that things got going and the blanket sat there, a pile of silvery neglected softness. 

Then something kicked in a few days ago. I do have a lot on the burner but nothing that is super necessary and has to be done asap and I had some books on tape I wanted to listen to and its a lot harder to follow a story if you have to read a pattern. So the viking hat got put aside, the pattern for the converse booties filed away and out comes the blanket!

Now at the time the pattern was doable with just a little bit of challenge. Out of 12 rows only 2 weren't knit and of those two one was a purl row. Serious, super easy+10 after some of the other stuff I've done. I zoned and it was nice. I've added 4 more pattern repeats and have moved into the reverse section. Who knows maybe I'll have it done and on BB's bed before her b-day in June! GOALS!


Thus far



P.S. Its not all blanket and nothing else. I did do the 5 minutes of work I had left on the insignia on the stocking cap for my former Bootcamp instructors impending child! I did take up the needles to work on the converse booties so I'm feeling pretty good.



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