So where have I been, you ask? Well, let me tell you, it’s been quite a month in my little knitting world. I’ve been working on a baby blanket idea for my good friend from work who is expecting. At first I thought I would try an Aran Sampler afghan, where every square displayed a different pattern. In typical fashion for me though, this became quickly overwhelming. Trying to figure out which pattern to do next and how to knit it up so it would mirror the size and shape of the other squares, was just making my brain hurt.Then I became focused on how much I hate fiinishing, and the thought of sewing up all of those strips of squares and weaving in all of the little ends that they would produce was not exciting me at all. So I decided that horizonal stripes would be the thing. And with my love of cables, I was determined to incorporate some kind of cabled pattern into the blanket. But you know what? With the vivid colors and the stripes, the cables just became TOO MUCH. So that idea went by the wayside, too.
Then I tried the Lizard Ridge pattern from Knitty.com. This pattern is truly great and I do think I will make one someday, but I need to practice my techniques further because some of the stitches on my short rows were icky looking. I think maybe there were times when I forgot to pick up the wrap with the wrapped stitch on the short rows. Plus I didn’t like that it was basically a stockinette pattern, and since I am using an acrylic yarn it won’t block well. So getting it to have the shape I wanted would be more challenging than I thought it was worth. I certainly see why the designer chose wool yarns with long color runs to do this pattern. It is well suited for that.
Then it occurred to me… a simple stitch pattern with almost random stripes? But what stripe pattern to use? That’s when I remembered reading another pattern on Knitty.com, Tiptoe Through the Tulips, by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee. In this pattern, Stephanie describes how she created a seemingly random stripe pattern by having a certain number of colors, and a different number of stripe widths. So, each time a color came up in order, it would be a different width, because the widths occur at a different rate. So, if I have seven colors, and five different widths of stripes, and the colors repeat x often and the widths repeat y often, I’ll get lots and lots of unique looking stripes. The picture in this entry sort of represents this. Stephanie also includes a table in her pattern that shows how this works, so i won’t try to re-create that here. So I’m doing seven colors (pink, orange, yellow, green, teal, blue, purple) and five stripe widths (14 rows, 2 rows, 4, 10, 8) So, in combination, these rows of colors of varying widths are very striking. At least in my mind. That’s pretty much where this project is right now. I have started it, but I’m still knitting the first color! So I guess I’ll post pics when there’s enough color going on so I can show it off.
I’m doing the whole thing in a simple mistake rib pattern (K2, P1 every row), which is very simple and a far cry from the design I started with. But, I guess, sometimes simplest is best. I’m finally enjoying this project.
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