wecareblanket 04

One stitch at a time and this blanket is finally finished. Now I need to weave in a few ends.

Tomorrow it will go for a ride in my washing machine and dryer with two other blankets a crocheter made that I helped finish.

I'll bring it into the sisterhood on Thursday. Yay! We've made over 100 blankets since starting the project.

As seems to be my current trend, I've been working on projects for others.

• Seaming a sweater for a new knitter.
• Seaming a wecareblanket knit by a friend.
• I'm working on another new design and it features lots of stockinette in the round. it's seamless and I adore it. There are many things I'll do differently for the actual design but it's nice to see that my rough shaping and yarn choice work. next i need to do some maths to figure out how to turn it into a design.
• I'm mostly ignoring my own wecareblankets and other projects. and this website. again.

My friend EZ[1] started a knit blanket over twenty years ago for a grandchild. She knit a few inches and realized she definitely did not enjoy knitting, she prefers to crochet. Since it is acrylic, she gave it to me to knit for the sisterhood blanket project. I marked where she stopped with a bit of red thread, and started knitting.

She chose a pattern with an easy repeat. To me, it's a simple variation on a Mary Thomas pattern, a broken check. It's the type of pattern a knitter who can read the fabric can pick up and start working, without a written pattern.

Things seemed fine for a few rows, until they weren't.

I kept going a bit longer and realized something was not right.

So I ripped out what I'd knit.

Then I knit it again.

With almost the same issue.

I couldn't figure out what was wrong.

I told her, we laughed about it. It's a simple pattern. So, what was I doing wrong? I kept up this process for at least a week: knitting a row, then ripping it out again.

I set it aside for another week or two.

When I picked it back up, my issues were obvious. It was definitely a PEBYAN[2] ! There were two issues with my counting.

First: I was knitting a different count for the border stitches so everything was off by one. It is obvious what it should be. I just decided I wanted a different number.

Second: on one of the internal pattern repeats, I miscounted the pattern stitch, working 9 stitches not 10, so again, I was off by one. And once one repeat had the wrong count, more of the broken checks did because there was no longer a rhythm to the stitch repeat.

Combined, no wonder I was having issues! Once again I ripped out what I knit.

Before I started again, this time I added a stitch marker to each of the borders.

I am an experienced knitter, people pay me to teach them and/or fix their problems.

Stitch markers are not a sign of weakness, but of strength.

There was a time I thought only beginners needed stitch markers. They are an aid to getting my work done (in this case knit proper stitch pattern over the correct number of stitches) as much as my glasses are to being able to see. All I needed was markers at each border and the rest has seemed to fall into place.

This week I was delighted to learn I can work this pattern at coffee in the morning, without messing up, thanks to two simple stitch markers. It's exciting to finally make progress on this project.

Notes

[1] not that EZ! I wish. This EZ is very skilled at crochet and needlepoint.

[2] PEBYAN = problem exists between yarn and needles. a take on PEBKAC. ;)

Time for a new plan. The blankets are taking over, and instead of feeling toasty and comforted, the signs of burnout are creeping in.

The irony? They're not even my blankets!

Somewhere along the way, fixing and finishing blankets for our Sisterhood's "We Care Blankets" project became my role. And honestly? It's been a delightful surprise to discover how much seaming and finishing have grown on me (weaving in ends remains tedious, of course). The work is satisfying enough that finishing services are now featured more prominently than my other offerings. But right now, the balance has tipped too far.

Many personal projects are languishing without the mental space to work on them. When paying work suffers, it creates a cascade of issues. It also means there's no way to actually finance my volunteer efforts.

The languishing pile includes 3 of my own blankets for this project. During our weekly group meet-up, there's rarely time to work on them. Picking up dropped stitches and answering technique questions means dropping my own. Each week brings ripping out my own mistakes made while helping others. There's also a blanket for Yarn Yisrael Chai waiting, it is a fussier pattern than I thought so needs focus time. My personal house blankets, I think there's maybe five in progress? It's a surprisingly hard number to pin down, not only do I use blankets while I'm actively working on them, but I may have started another one last week. More on that in a bit.

Here's my revised plan: Sisterhood blankets get worked on at coffee after minyan on Mondays, Thursdays, and Rosh Chodesh (aka days the Torah is read). This works nicely since we meet on Thursday mornings. They'll also come along to Sisterhood events such as the monthly book club, during our board meetings, and for things like our membership brunch this coming Sunday. I'll likely expand this to nearly any time I'm learning (or practicing Hebrew); that likely will be Sisterhood blanket project time too. The blankets will probably still dominate when (and since) I'm at shul.

Other days and times? I'll work on whatever feels right.

Evenings during TV time are for whatever personal project strikes my fancy. Tonight it's the bog jacket.

Last week, for a change a pace, the pin loom came out, along with yarn repurposed from an unworn cowl. Things quickly got a little obsessed, I forgot how much fun it is to weave on. 24 squares later the first skein was all used up and I immediately started into the second one. There's no real plan for these yet; E thinks it'll be "too lightweight" but I think a blanket is possible. It might become a shawl, a very large shawl (in time). We'll see. I'm finding the act of weaving on my zoom loom requires a different hand motion from knitting or crocheting and gives my muscles a useful break. Plus it's incredibly portable. It even came to post-minyan coffee last Friday albeit by mistake when I grabbed the wrong project bag in the early morning dark!

Spinning is getting more attention too. I took my wheel outside on the warm Monday after the Rhinebeck-I-did-not-attend for a good session. Cleaning up my office and rearranging continues as always. My geal is to find a way to , with the goal of keep the wheel in a more ready-to-spin state and returning to making spinning a regular habit.

I hope this approach helps me find equilibrium again. It's a place to start.

As this is a challenging time of year, I'm pleased to discover this blanket is still growing. The cast-on-itis has slowed and I'm back to working on existing projects. A partial row here, a few stitches there; it's getting a bit big and more challenging to schlep around. But that's ok; some days the temperatures actually drop, so I want it on my lap.

Maybe I'll finish it this month, but I'm not forcing myself to only work on it. I have an already late sample/test and other designs I want to make progress on.

I find the garterstitch soothing as I wrangle everything else going on.

Progress feels slow these days because I've been casting on too many projects. So of course I've not been posting updates, but I've been knitting and crocheting. For a few days, I started a new project a day, thankfully last night I held firm and made progress on another project (not pictured)[1]. That's not surprising for September; between my favorite season approaching and the Jewish holidays, I'm craving something new!

I've been pretty consistent in working on this blanket during my morning coffee most days. It's proving a good project for our far ranging discussions, especially as the rows are growing longer with each section. As long as I remember to slip the first stitch, (log cabin is pretty much the only time i do this and it's weird because I don't actually like how the pick-up is, but that's my default!) and catch both strands of my yarn i can pay attention to the conversation. The air conditioning where we sit can be aggressive so it's not a challenge to have a large blanket on my lap.

I'm not quite sure what size the blanket will be when I finish with the large cake of yarn. I have plenty of the baby blue Baby Soft yarn, so a solid border should help me get to the minimum dimensions (34, 36 ideal) with ease.

I hope to finish this one so I can return to the other blankets I've been working on. There are too many and there's lots of yarn everywhere and it's created a few not-great situations.

I'm incredibly embarrassed. I was donating a bunch of yarn to clear space in my office. It almost looked as if a yarn store had exploded. I'd pulled out some yarn I wanted to use for these blankets and set it next to other yarn I was using. The end result? It all got mixed up and some that shouldn't have been donated was. To make matters worse, the friend who had given me a project to finish months ago (she'd cast it on over 20 years ago!) was the one who found it in the donations. That was both good -- I need that yarn -- and embarrassing. Once I got home, I figured out how it happened and cleaned up my office to prevent issues like that in the future.

Now here's to hoping I can finish one project, a new kippah, that I'd like for Rosh Hashannah.

Notes

[1] I need to rethink quite a bit on this site in order to have one update link to multiple projects, or none.

At my sisterhood's weekly blanket knitting and crochet group, I've come to expect that I won't make any progress on my own projects. I spend the time happily fixing dropped stitches, sharing techniques, and handling any number of odds and ends for everyone else. If I do attempt to work on my own, I end up ripping out my progress when I get home because I have more mistakes than I was fixing for others.

It was a very calm group this week and I didn't need to help others beyond holding a tape measure. I managed to knit 10 ridges on the second "log" of this blanket, slipping the first stitch of each row since I've found it really helps with pick-up for log cabin construction.

The colors look very... patriotic right now. I'm beginning the transition from the dusty brick red to grey and I'm curious how it will look as the blanket develops. I need to decide if I'm knitting each section with the same number of ridges or if I'll mix it up. Given that the color transitions won't match up with the sections anyway, I think I'm going to work each log consistently to 18 ridges of garter stitch.

For anyone unfamiliar with log cabin blankets, they're worked by knitting strips around a central square, building outward like this example. I'm making my own pattern since the concept is pretty straightforward - though I need to find a longer cable for this needle before I start the next few logs. That's one downside to this method: it does keep growing!

It seems all my knitting is knit, rip, knit these past few weeks. I struggled so much with the increases on Antarctic Joy, I even wrote about it for little acorn creations this week: Learning from Mistakes (with a few extra stitches).

I've learned any project I take to shul knitting will need to be redone. I spend all my time helping others that I'll set aside my work and then not pay attention when I pick it back up. I've started taking different small pieces to see if I can even work up a motif or a swatch, but last week's motif ended up with increases shifted and it doesn't look like a design feature. I need to rip that too, but I like the idea, so that is useful.

Speaking of starting over, yesterday I brought in part of a large donation of yarns and combined them with what we have stored from the sisterhood office. Among them was a large granny square someone had made and abandoned, a beautiful deep dark navy that would make a nice start to a project. I paired it with a Lion Brand Bonus Bundle Mandala cake that goes from muted dusty brick red to turquoise, yellow, tan, light purple, and back to pale dusty brick red. I loved the color combination and decided to work in garter stitch around the square.

But here's where the problems started. The Mandala yarn is DK weight while the original granny square was worked in heavy worsted to aran weight. The gauge mismatch was obvious, so this morning over coffee I ripped my work and shifted tactics.

We have a large amount of DK-weight mystery white yarn in the donations, so I grabbed a larger needle and held that together with the Mandala, deciding to work in log cabin this time. The yarn weight was better, but the white created too much contrast - too stark against the navy, even when paired with the Mandala colors.

Back to the donation pile I went, digging until I found a skein of light cornflower blue. I think this will look much better with the dusty brick red and against the navy. Later stripes can switch to the white -- I hope so, since I don't have much of this blue.

So now it's time to rip out what I knit at coffee this morning. Would a swatch have answered these questions? Maybe. So would better lighting while I was debating color. Sometimes, you just need to jump in and be prepared to rip out.