Chevron Blanket: Forest Heather or Bust!

Last time I updated you on my Heirloom Chevron Throw, it looked like this (ugh, this photo is blurry because my corner of Canada + November = dark all the time!):

Since then, I’ve made some fun progress! I finished the last rows of the 4th stripe, in Cascade 220 “Irlande”.

After I finished the last full chevron, the next bit of the pattern is to work two corner triangles to square everything off, using the last colour. I really love changing colours in striped projects. It just always feels really momentous!

The last colour is also Cascade 220, in “Forest Heather”. I’ve been pretty impressed with the Cascade 220 colourways that I chose for this project, especially the Heathers, because they’re actually fairly layered and interesting. I think of Cascade 220 as an affordable workhorse yarn, and I think it’s been just right for this project. Good drape, enough squish factor, and lots and lots of colours to choose from. I’m so pleased with how all the colours are looking together! It’s definitely a greeny-goldy bonanza. Not colours that would make everyone happy, but I really like them.

Of course, somebody still thinks this project is JUST for her, so when I spread it out to look at my progress and take a few photos, she opportunistically jumped up and settled in. Sneak!

Greens galore! (aka blanket update)

Guess what! Garter chevron stripe blanket update! :D

A sneak peak is enough, right?

A little bit more?

TA DA!

In all it’s three-stripes-and-four-colours-done-so-far glory! Um, yes. It’s still making me super happy. Squishy and drapey and garterey and GREEN! For real.

Getting to start a new colour in any striped project is always especially exciting for me. The first of the darker greens!

Even though it’s starting to get a little bit warm where I am, our summers are pretty mild, and working on this blanket in the cool evenings or shadier afternoons is still totally pleasant.

I’m inching along! This is the last full stripe, which is also pretty exciting. Once this colour is finished (which won’t be a for a while), I’ll be knitting two triangles to fill in the bottom corners. I love this pattern! (It’s the Heirloom Chevron Throw by Jocelyn Tunney :) )

Besides this garterey goodness, I’ve been working on another blanket project, too… (you can probably guess which one). Are you into blanket knitting? I am a teeny bit obsessed :)

Sunshiney Stripey Chevron Cowl!

Remember this stripey cowl I started a while back? I’ve been working a row or two on it when I had the chance, and lo and behold, it’s finished!

I used Ashley Solley’s snake skin pattern, with some modifications (a different number of stitches, different number of repeats, different number of rows in each stripe…), and Frogtree Pediboo yarn in yellow and natural.

The cowl is knit in the round, and then grafted together at the end. My grafting job is far from perfect, but I’m okay with it!

I’m really happy with how it turned out. At first, I thought maybe I would have liked it better shorter (and snugger around my neck), but after wearing it, I like how it drapes! Great for wearing with scoop neck tops.

And the happy yellow and white stripes! I feel like the vibe is just right for summer.

Yellow to Gold to Granny Smith

I took my garter stitch chevron blanket out for coffee and a donut this week! That right there, friends, is an earl grey donut. It was FAN. TASTIC :)

Also, Miss New Zealand thinks this blanket is hers, already. She’s generally a big fan of squishy knitted fabric, and this is no exception. If I’m not quick to put it away, this is what happens:

Can I show you some actual progress instead of just snacks and cats? YES! Ta da!

I’ve modified from the original pattern a little bit. Instead of working 50 rows per stripe, I’m doing 60 (30 garter ridges). I just wanted to use up more yarn and have a wider stripe than I had at 50 rows.

I like how it’s looking so far! Up next: apple green. I think the colourway is actually called “granny smith”.

Even though most of the time it’s squashed into a blob in my lap, it’s starting to be pretty substantial size-wise!

Can I bust out this stripe in a week or less? (Probably. My other activities this week will be deadline-dissertation-chapter-writing [ugh], deadline-TA-grading [ugh], and feeling grumpy and sad about my still far far away spouse [a million ughs]. That stuff means more knitting.)

Garter Chevron Blanket: Yellow :)

Have I mentioned that I really, really like garter stitch? And blankets? And projects that combine those two things? Also STRIPES? Also yellow and green?

I am so excited about this blanket :)

Pictures? Of course!

I used my thematically appropriate yellow and green yarn ball stitch markers.

It started to grow really quickly right away!

Because I’ve used a different needle size from the pattern (I’m using a 5.5mm needle), I’ve adjusted the numbers a bit. I continued increasing the initial triangular section until I had a total of 269 sts (134 sts on either side of the center stitch).

Why 269? That’s when I ran out of yellow :)

Next up? Gold heather!

Matching teapot optional! In just a couple of tea-filled evenings and boredom-filled bus rides, I’ve made lots of progress already.

The rows are so long that they gobble up yarn like nobody’s business. Already, in just 15 rows, I’ve used up 40g of yarn.

How wide will the stripes be? More on that next time! It might involve a golden rule…

Garter Spectrum Stripe Blanket CATCH UP!

Since I last updated my garter stripe blanket progress, well… I’ve made a lot of progress. (Picture heavy ahead!)

I got busy working on the second repeat of the spectrum…

I took the blanket with me on the bus, and to work…

But then it got a bit unwieldy. So I worked on it at home…

And then! I got to the second True Blue stripe! This one felt extra special, because I got to use both the last bits of my own leftover True Blue, and some in the same colourway sent to me by my extremely kind friend Amber :)

Then… a calamity. I ran out of navy yarn just three rows away from the end of the stripe.

So, I wove in ends for a while, to keep busy until I could pick up more navy yarn.

LUCKILY, the navy yarn is Berroco Vintage, easily acquired at one of my local yarn stores. Thank goodness it wasn’t a rare hand dye!

Before I picked up more navy, I also started thinking more seriously about the edging for the blanket. I’m going to use some natural, undyed Juniper Moon Farm 100% cormo wool yarn that I happen to have… so I wound that up.

It smells aaaaahmaaaaaazing, feels wonderful and lanoliney, and is going to make an amazing edging.

Next time I update, I should be showing you the finished spectrum-ey portion, and be all ready to start the border bits :D

Guess what? Green is my favourite.

So, I’ve been going like gangbusters on my garter stripe spectrum blanket. Even though it’s starting to get big, I’m still stubbornly pulling it out to knit on the bus and hauling it around with me to squeeze in a few stitches any time I can. Obsessed is not too strong of a word to describe my relationship with the blanket-in-progress at the moment :)

I’m actually a few stripes past what you can see in these photos, but for now, I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves.

 

Oh Mr. Sun, Sun, Mr. Golden Sun, Please shine down on me!

So, sunny yellow seems like the perfect summer colour to me. I love yellow – next to barf green, it’s probably my favourite.

I like bright yellow, and mustard yellow, and yellows like straw or apricots… if Harvest Gold appliances were still widely available, I would want one.

And, no surprise: garter stitch looks great in yellow.

And you know what comes after yellow, don’t you?!!

GREEN IS NEXT! I AM SO EXCITED!

The warm end of the spectrum!

So, I am still very pleasantly immersed in garter stitch stripe happiness.

I wasted no time after I found the perfect peachy sherbet colour  to start a stripe with it!

It is very pretty, and there’s something I find thoroughly elegant about the way garter stitch stripes look as they unfold. Especially because I’m working all of the stripes the same width, it seems extremely ordered and tidy.

Normally, I’m not much of a warm palette person. If I had ever had my “colours” done, I’m certain I’d be in the “cool” range, where they tell you to wear blues and grays and greens. Although I LOVE warm sunny yellow and bright happy coral,

and I do wear plenty of those, I have very little red or orange clothing.

Despite that, I’m finding the “warm” end of this spectrum blanket (which I’ve now decided it will be… I cannot bear to arrange the colours other than in rainbow order, and I’m crossing my fingers that it won’t end up looking cheesy) to be entirely delightful.

Bright, cheerful yellow will be up next, and I think it’s going to be just perfect.

Peach! Light Coral! Cantaloupe! Soft Orange! Sherbet! Grapefruit!

So, as I suspected, I couldn’t get that light orangey pinky colour out of my head. I do very much like how the bright yellow I have looks next to Nantucket pink…

But, I decided I should at least check out my local yarn stores to see what they had – if they had nothing in that colour, problem solved.

It turned out that the perfect colourway was waiting for me after all!

On the bottom, the original yarn I wanted to use, from Maiwa. On the top, a skein of Berroco Vintage I picked up – the colourway is called Grapefruit! I could not get over how close the colours were.

I’m glad I decided to take Grapefruit home with me (and luckily it didn’t break the bank, either).

Then, when I went to put the too-heavy-Maiwa-yarn back in my closet, I noticed something…

The wound yarn in the foreground is the stuff from Maiwa… but just behind and to the right, you can see ANOTHER skein of yarn that looks suspiciously similar in colour!

Apparently, I *really* love this colour, because upon inspecting my stash and finished projects…

I can see that I’ve got a lot of it! On the top, the skein of Berroco Vintage in Grapefruit destined for my garter stitch blanket. Underneath, a skein of fingering weight merino/cashmere/nylon that I dyed myself at a workshop a couple of years ago. In the top right, the yarn from Maiwa. And on the bottom, a Begbie cowl knit from some local handspun I bought. Um… I guess I like light orangey pinks?!

I found something else rifling through my closet.

On the right, Ojai leftovers that will definitely be part of the blanket. That skein of bright emerald green on the left?!! It’s laceweight, definitely not something that would work for the blanket, but WHERE can I get some bright cheerful emerald green worsted weight?! ACK! It looks SO GOOD next to the Ojai!!!

I guess I won’t be able to call it a “scrap” blanket after all, will I?