While planning my trip to Wichita, I wanted to take a big knitting project with me for after I finished the hooded sweater. While playing around in Ravelry's pattern section I found
Stitchylinda's Rainbow Feather and Fan Wavy Baby Blanket pattern. Which is written for DK weight yarn. I just happen to have had a bunch of oddball half-used skeins of DK weight yarn. Some of the yarn I bought and some was given to me. Yes! Clean some more yarn out of that drawer! Watched a
Very Pink you-tube tutorial on how to do Feather-n-Fan stitch pattern.
I figured I had enough yarn for maybe a 48" by 48" baby blanket. My sister saw it. She said she really liked it. What the hey, would make a great Christmas present for her. I could replace that extra heavy crocheted afghan on her sofa and she would get a knitted afghan from me. But I would have to go to the store and get some more yarn because I was pretty sure I didn't have enough to make my standard size 48" by 72" afghan/blanket.
Sister said she liked the variegated yarn I was using (upper edge of
the photo), so when I went looking for more yarn that would blend in
with what I had, I found some clown barf (Candy Baby).
I
discovered after I had done all the swatching and had about 4 repeats
done that I was using the wrong size needles. The pattern calls for 4mm
needles. Guess what? That's US size 6 needles. Guess what size I was
using? US size 4 needles. No wonder I needed 12 repeats wide to get
to 48 inches. 4 rows of garter and 3 repeats (12 rows) of the
feather-n-fan equaled 2 inches so I figured I needed 35 repeats of color
plus the 2 white borders to equal about 72 inches. That part turned
out right! Yeah!
I found that the way Stitchylinda had
the rows labeled in the pattern confusing because you actually knit the
feather-n-fan stitch pattern rows 4,1,2,3 and repeat that sequencing 3
times before knitting 4 rows of garter stitch. That's so when you add
new colors you get a neat add.
I wasn't happy with the way the borders turned out, the garter stitch curl. This is because I knit in acrylics and don't do hard blocking. This is because they are 6 rows deep. The outside rows probably need a few extra stitches in them so they would lie flat without any hard blocking. Next time!
This project was interrupted several times for hats so it didn't get done until the first of February. Sister was surprised when I gave it to her and said, "Merry Christmas!" She thought she was just teasing me, I got the last laugh, though.
Next, on to the hats! I hope everyone is having a good day.
Judy
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