Finished Object Alert

By midday Friday, I had completed all the knitting on Carter's blanket. It took no time at all to get the last third of the edging knit.  My fingers were flying, it seems. I took a few hours break because I needed to be really clear headed for the last bit, grafting.  

I have grafted lots of things, sock toes in particular but lots of other things too. Grafting stockinette has such a lovely rhythm to to it.  You just repeat the four stitches as you go, like a children's nursery rhyme, knit, purl, purl, knit... and voila the work is done.

But I do not know the rhyme I need to do for grafting garter stitch.  I did a bit of research and found what I needed:  knit, purl, knit, purl.  It is easy peasy after you get the set up rows correct. ( I undid the cast on row to get the cast on edge on a needle) It all worked well but this is a join at the colour change and I wanted only the garter ridges to show on the right side. The instructions said to have a knit row on one needle and a purl row on the other and I did that.  My purl was on the front needle and the knit was on the back.  That was opposite what I needed to get the ridge on the right side and the join showing on the back.  You can see what happened just at the bottom left. 

The join shows.  I decided not to redo. I turned it into a feature instead.  Do you remember the wee heart I showed you the other day?  

I have thought about doing the heart right from the start.  I thought about adding a pocket so he could tuck it in, so it stayed our secret.  It would get lost easily that way so I thought about using the long strands from sewing the parts of the blanket together to make the heart.  When I created this small error, I decided to use it and the heart as a design feature. That way, even if in future, the heart falls off or he chooses to take it off, the line will remind him of the heart and where it had been and he would be reminded of how much he is loved every time he looked at it.

This wee heart turned out much better than my first try.  I pushed the stitches together much more tightly as I crocheted and that seemed to do the trick.  It made pulling the centre slip knot tight easier.  

As ever, the last part of this blanket was weaving in ends. This was only a part of the bits left.  

All the colour changes made for a lot of ends.

The rest of the weekend was working on Carter's Secret Surprise blanket.   And this.

Saturday afternoon, during the F1 pre qualifying show, I picked up some socks and finished sock two.  Had I wanted them to be tube socks, that would have been the end, but I needed heels.  I love heels and the close fit they give in winter.  That little bit of extra snug fit turns hand knit socks into something magically warm for winter wear.   

Heel one is well under way, the only down side being that I am knitting the heels with two strands of sock yarn held together.  That extra firm thickness makes the heels last much better than just a single strand.  I don't like knitting it as much as with a single strand and it is harder on my hands but longer lasting socks are more important that a few minutes of less happy knitting.

My plan for today is to finish these socks and to work on the Secret Blanket.  And laundry. There is always laundry.  Kind of like dishes.  There is that too.  Oh well.  👸