And Now for Something Completely Different

Yesterday morning was spent working on my top.  I did a try on mid morning and I already know I am going to get a lot of wear out of this.  It's turning out lovely.

I had no plans to work on anything else but I had a downturn in energy for the project. I was feeling a bit down.  As Jana from Finnish Knitting Stories would say, life is pretty lifey right now. I needed something different to distract myself.  

I looked at the pile of knitting around me and decided that blanket knitting would be a good idea.  I picked up my Willow World blanket.  Willow World is a blanket pattern that takes designs from tableware to blanket.  Since I love blue and white china, It seemed like the right thing to knit.  

 

I'm only just starting the colourwork border and was having a good time getting the setup row going...till I reached the end of that first row.  There ought to be 15 stitches between markers and, as you can see, this repeat clearly is not 15 stitches.  All the rest are but since this is the first or second repeat of the pattern...harrumph.  

This was not going to soothe my heart, so I went looking for another blanket.  

The other blanket stuff in reaching distance is the very strong contrasts of colour yarn I bought myself after Christmas.  

I purchased the pattern, the Sweet Shop blanket and got down to it.

My first quandary after starting was this:  colours?   The way the pattern is designed to be knit, it felt right to settle my colour sequence first.  As usual, I got out my trusty markers and some paper and colored for a while.

 There.  Now I am ready to sit down and get to work.  

It's just a garter square.  I could have done it without a pattern but this is not just knit squares and sew together.  It is all worked at once and I wanted to see what her secret sauce was.  It's kind of neat.  Interesting too.  You could approach this a thousand ways, but this is not quite what I would have thought of.  

I am giving myself a day off, so to speak and staying with the blanket today.  Let's see where it takes me to. 

Updated.  A treat for your eyes.  Keukenhof 2026 on YouTube.

Sleeves first?

On the weekend, I settled in and did something different and yet, the same. I stayed knitting on my Pleione top but took it in an entirely different way.

Several of the online knitters I watch do their sleeves before they finish the body.  I have not done that before but Pleione has very short sleeves so I thought it would be a good top to try sleeves first on.  

Sleeves first worked okay but it felt very very weird.  Still they are done and that does feel kind of nice.  I did deviate from pattern.  The pattern has you repeat the lace from the front around the sleeve hem instead of ribbing.  In this yarn, at the gauge I am knitting, that would look sort of off.  Too much.  Too busy.  I opted for a much simpler lace, just a row of yarn over eyelets. I think it balances well with the front lace panel.  

Again, I have adapted the lace a bit but it is the scale of it that really changes the way the lace looks.  I quite like it.

I am ready for a try on.  I decided that I will do that when this little bit of yarn is knit.

A try on is so much easier without having to drag along skeins of yarn.  

Today the tasks are to keep working on this top.  It will be a really good summer top.  Plus, my gauge is large enough (I hope) that I will be able to wash and dry this in the machine.  For now, it's time for coffee and a bite of breakfast.  

Task accomplished.

Knitting in the round.