Sarah's Ramblings

It's like Blonde on Blonde, but woolier

The Mu Shu blanket is proceeding rapidly.


I apologize for the darkness - it's been raining today so I wouldn't have been able to get enough light even if I took the photo outside. I experimented with some different levels of light, though. There's a slightly lighter, though more inaccurate (the blue is too bright and the red is too orange) pic here, and a downright fluorescent one here.

As you can see, I decided not to go with 6 x 8, and am going with 6 x 9 squares. Incidentally, if I'd just done 6 by 8, I probably could have done the whole thing with just 5 balls of Patons Classic Merino. Miraculous things, mitres. The Berocco pattern uses 4 by 5 squares, but by my eye they seem to be only slightly smaller than your average newborn Clydesdale. *haughty yarn snob sniff* Mine are BETTER.

OK, right around square 43 or so I started thinking about large gauge. How Cara had the patience for a sockweight log cabin I have no idea. (Maybe because it's give-up-your-firstborn beautiful?)

Anyway, so photos are all well and good, but unless you know the gauge of the linoleum in my kitchen it's not very useful. How does it fare up against the granny blanket?


Previous scale demonstration seen here. I'd say we're good. It's not as wide, but I think that's OK. See, in my opinion, a lot of baby blankets and afghans are way too short and wide. Me, I like being cocooned. Why do I need a lot of fabric on my left and right if my feet are cold?

Looking at the above photo, I just realized I only have 5 squares left to do. HOLY COW. I have, once again, been unwittingly monogamous. I liked this project so much. Mitres are total zen. Particulerly patchwork ones where you get to use a lot of colours. (I plan to make a dent in those 5 tonight. Celebrity Jeopardy (the real one, not SNL) starts tonight at 7:30, and I'm starting to watch Bones, which is at 8. Bones is really fun - like CSI, before CSI totally sucked.)

Now, after those squares are done, I need to put on a border. I briefly considered picking up all 'round and doing a hyoooge border in a zillion stitchezzzzzz . . . Yeah, not so much. I thought a little bit about log cabin knitting, because I'm doing a charity acrylic log cabin afghan right now in fits and starts. I think log cabin and mitres are perfectly suited. And I came up with the pattern at the left.

Excuse the Paint. I know it's hideous. But it describes my point. Now, imagine the blue is full of mitres. Then I pick up the sides and work the black sections back and forth, individually, for 30 rows. Then I pick up the sides of those and knit grey 31-st mitres in the corners.

Concerns about this plan: What if the black bind-off is too tight? I like that right now the blanket is stretchy in every way. And, more importantly, what about the colours? I've only chosen black because, well, it's basic black. I like the grey corners, because it's a colour from the mitres. I don't want to do the black sections in another colour from the mitres because - Say I chose red. There are red squares on the outside of the blanket. Then the colour would be touching. The horror, the horror. It doesn't bear thinking.

Does anyone have any better ideas?

PS. Harlot tomorrow at Yarn Forward?

posted by Sarah @ 4:34 PM