Well Begun

On Friday, I took a monumental step.  

I started a new project, as dear to me as anything I have done.  

I started my Friesland blanket (Jenise Hope) with the yarn that Marcus picked all by himself, for my birthday.  

It took me a few starts to get going right.  I started on five needles but that was too much trouble to track increases.  I restarted on one needle per side and though seven needles feels like a lot of needles, it was much easier to  manage.

This isn't a difficult knit if you break it down into little bite size pieces, as each section and each motif naturally are.   

What it is, is a very intense knit.  It was an exciting feeling, getting the stitches in each segment, increasing every second row, colour work on every row, but I found that the continuous watch to get everything just so, took a toll.  It was and is wonderful, but it isn't going to be something I can knit on for hours a day.  

I am really pleased with the way it looks so far.  She gives excellent notes for the little tricks to make it happen easier and I am following her suggestions but I am also doing a few things, a few tricks of my own.  

I decided that because of each motifs construction, that it would be a great time to learn to hold both yarns in one hand. I am not a hundred percent sure, but I think holding them this way is helping keep both yarns tensions more even particularly here at the small diameter start.   

The other thing I am doing different is that I am not doing quite the same increase.  She uses a m1l and m1r  increase but because this is acrylic yarn I was very concerned about what  I can only refer to as humping.  It is so easy to have happen on a project knitted with acrylic.  You can't block out a too tight knit center and it destroys the way the whole thing looks.  

I am using an ewrap increase that puts no tension on the stitches in the row below but looks exactly like the m1 increases in your knitting.  I have played with this increase and have found that there are some places it works well and others where it works less well.  In a place where too tight stitches can happen it is perfect.  In the middle of easy knitting, it is too much ease in the yarn and leaves holes that show up in time.

Anyway, it is intense and glorious and exciting and as stimulating as can be.  And I will enjoy and revel in every single minute of knitting this, even if the whole thing takes forever.