Finally, some knitting! (Daily Update: 31/8/19)

My new baby blanket pattern.

For the last month or so I’ve been working on a big baby blanket. It’s a huge colour blocked hexagon with different stitches in each of the colour sections, and I’m loving it. I haven’t blocked it yet because we’re travelling and I don’t have all my supplies, so I’m not 100% sure what it looks like finished, but it’s looking pretty positive so far. My father in law (who we’re staying with) found me some wire that I can use as blocking wires so I think I can block it today or tomorrow.

I was typing the pattern up for it as I went, but I discovered a week ago or so that the yarn I made it in is discontinued :(. I want to knit this up in Milla Mia Naturally Soft Aran instead, I’ve used it before and it’s amazing. It turns out that LoveCrafts (who I bought my Milla Mia through) do yarn support so I emailed them about it yesterday. Here’s hoping they accept it!

The other yarn option I might explore is to see if I can write the pattern up for an Autumn and Indigo yarn. I just realised that Claire commented on one of the blanket pictures on Instagram and seemed to like it. She and I have a pretty good relationship - we chat on Instagram and my Circle Cable Mitts were a collaboration with her. I was meant to write a shawl pattern for her earlier this year but it just wasn’t working out - I think this’d be a great alternative. Plus the point of this blanket initially was to have great colours and her colours are AMAZING so I think it’d be a good fit. I’ll do some investigation into whether she has a machine washable base (essential for baby things) and then maybe I’ll reach out to her instead of waiting on LoveCrafts.

On the sleeveless shirt pattern front, getting a good set of measurements to base the grading on is still breaking my brain a bit. Ysolda (who published the spreadsheet I’ve been working from) very graciously answered my questions about how the armscye and armhole circumference are such different measurements, so I think I understand a bit more but I need to stare at my spreadsheet for a while longer and make some adjustments. But last night I decided to just use the numbers I had anyway and start writing the pattern. I did all the grading to get the stitch and row counts I need to make the fitted tube part - basically the underarms to the waist - and am starting to knit that up in my own measurements. Because of the travelling we’ve been doing I haven’t really been knitting anything for the last week, so casting on today felt so good!