Projects
A Blanket of Many Colors, 22 to Be Exact
Dear Kay,
I guess you could call this What I Did On My Holiday Vacation.
To recap: Back in December I had the New Shoes Feeling, when a new palette of MDK Jane yarn arrived and I went on a tear of square-making good times.
Kay, you’d be so proud of me, just letting go of reality until I looked up and another year had dawned, and it was time to get some clothes on for a change. Shattered skeins of Jane tangled at my feet, granola as entree, you know how this goes. I ran out of Belvitas is what I’m saying.
It was all squares all the time until I’d made a pile of garter stitch squares using all 22 colors of our Jane yarn.
Once I made 22, I made another 22, wanting to get enough squares to get a decent-sized throw going while simultaneously losing touch with reality.
I didn’t focus on how these squares would be laid out. I just focused on how pleasant it was to make a seven-inch square, how you can get such a groove going.
The Configuration
Eventually I did wonder how were they were going to behave with each other. Tin Can Knits’s Fly Away Blanket pattern is so malleable, so open to improv, that I nearly lost my mind trying out combinations of colors and placement of these triangles.
After flying geese, pinwheels, and orderly rows, I landed on diamonds. YES! This way, colors could really get up against each other and do mysterious things.
Here are 21 colors (by mistake I left out SAGE, and did two Clementines. Does anybody even care? I did! See how wound up I was?)
I liked this a lot. But having TWO of each color got me thinking that maybe the diamonds could each have two colors that were a bit more related, so that the full blanket would be colorful but slightly more coherent.
Some of the color pairings weren’t working (the dark blue and greens, see?), so I kept moving squares around until the diamonds rose up and said to me, Please stop. Haven’t you worried about this enough? We don’t care! Move on!
Layout Experiment No. 1: Light and Dark
Once I sewed forty garter mattress seams (the dependent clause of the week) (it wasn’t so bad) (Tin Can Knits has a superb how-to video), I experimented with putting the light values at one end, dark values at the other.
See?
As my grandmother would say, I didn’t care for that. It looked weird, unbalanced. (Note: a blanket using only the lightest value colors would be really great, but hey I also had 24 nonlight squares so forget THAT.)
Experiment No. 2: Alternating Light and Dark
Better. I guess. I mean, it’s a bunch of diamonds with a lot of colors in there.
So that’s where I landed. Diamonds, two colors in each.
The Ends of It All
In ends management news, I took the advice of the pattern and left 20″ strands at the end of each triangle for the eventual seaming extravaganza.
Note that I spit-felted (aka the felted join, the wet splice, whatever, it all sounds vaguely lewd) at the moment when I finished one triangle and began the second. This saved 44 ends which granted isn’t that big a deal in something like this, but it’s definitely a tidy thing to do. I would stop six stitches before the triangle ended, chop the yarn in use about 3 inches long, then spit-felt the new color. The join would land in the vicinity of the corner, and that was good enough for me.
I got so, so good at garter stitch mattress stitching. In the hypnotic mesmerization of all these seams, I really did hit a flow state. Get yourself a few dozen squares—you will attain higher consciousness, I promise.
More to Come, for Sure
I want to do a third column of five diamonds, to get this Fly Away to true blanket status. At the moment it’s a giant wrap, and it makes me unspeakably happy to bundle myself up in this thing. I’m taking it to Vogue Knitting Live, because what better place to wear a blanket around and declare it a garment?
For the record, a skein of Jane makes four seven-inch triangles. So at this point I’ve got a half skein left of each color. I used 10 skeins of Yorkshire, the undyed taupey gray color.
I could obviously go on endlessly about this thing, so fair warning—the year has just begun and I type fast.
Love,
Ann
PS Going to Vogue Knitting Live? We are—come join us! We’ll be at an Irish pub called Connolly’s (Times Square location just one block from the Marriott!) from 4-6 p.m. on Friday, January 30. What could be cozier than that? Let us know you’ll be there—reply here.
Wow! Lovely! And I remember a Kaffe interpretation you wore as a garment once day long ago! Knitting is wonderful!
What an adventure! This is an heirloom! I was worried about the sewing up from the beginning. But you didn’t seem (seam?) to mind. Love the diamonds! (Was intending to go to Vogue Live but, sadly, life had other plans. Hopefully next year!).
Ann, you must be the fastest (not to mention the most persistent) knitter I know (okay, maybe tied with Dana). If you have a mountain of sweaters, surely you must have a whole mountain range of blankets! I love the process you went through to arrange the colors, thanks very much for that. And I admit that a whole blanket of the paler colors tempts me. You and Kay and all of MDK are so deeply appreciated!
Hmph. So that’s where all the Yorkshire went.
….and the blanket is glorious!
Another knitting square mimicking a quilt block! I love it! Half square triangles! I am still working on log cabin knitting and it is so fun!!! It would be great to put a knitted blanket next to its mate done in quilting
Great idea!
Ann, it’s magnificent. All those yarn-square do-si-dos were totally worth it.
Ann, It is stunning!
Amazing- so many pretty colors! I love the two color diamonds that you decided on- can’t wait to see the finished product!
I love your blanket/wrap and this post brought up a lot of happy memories of knitting blankets, knitting squares, just Knitting All The Time. Thank you for that!
Only MDK can make me even THINK of a project like this! But many UFO’s bring me back to reality! I did manage to finish a Kiki Moriko rug and a Kaffe Fawcett circles scarf. Maybe……..
Beautiful seams
After just watching your master class on Knit Stars this makes perfect sense.
What a glorious treasure.
Ann, this is AMAZING! And SO INSPIRING!!! Beautiful!
Ann, I love your approach to this blanket – just make the squares and the rest will come. What a beautiful blanket/wrap – wear it with pride! Meanwhile, thank you for another project to add to my list. I will of course distract myself from current projects to do a bit of planning. Wheee!
As a 12-year old while sitting in a hospital waiting room for months (my grandmother had broken her hip and I was too young to be in her room) I knitted a garter strip blanket in cream, avocado and rust (quit rolling your eyes, it was 1968). I vowed, “never again”. I swore off garter stitch and relegated it to “beginner knitting”.
Enter Kay Gardiner and Ann Shayne. At just shy of 70, I am sitting next to a 3/4 finished Moderne Log Cabin blanket calling my name after the whirlwind of gift knitting. I am saving it for The Olympics – what better way to spend 3 weeks! After that who knows? Half square triangles look pretty enticing. Ann, what a lovely creation!
One of the biggest surprises, though, was to find a fellow Belvita lover!
What a great, inspirational post. I plan to join the Bang out a Sweater event- I am loving your yarns Jane and Atlas.
I don t usually make blankets but you are inspiring me- as all of you always do: currently making the Kaffe Fasset colorful Wrap, Winter Sunset.
Your writing is a pleasure to read.
Gorgeous! And I am impressed that you sewed them all together so quickly! I’d still be rearranging the squares next January.
What an accomplishment, Ann! This is great!! Sara in ATL
Amazing! Thank you for posting. Love it.
Gorgeous blanket with an excellent layout. I enjoyed your light/dark planning method and your writing style is wonderful.
I plan to be at Connolly’s on Friday night!
WHAT A STUNNER!%!&! Just Gorgeous with those marvelous color pairings. Uber well done You!
Beautiful blanket! You must not have a cat, because if you did the squares would have never been in place long enough to photograph! The cat would be in every picture too.
Bonus points for use of the word ‘lewd.’
What a glorious blanket! I look forward to seeing you swanning about in it at VK Live. That Jane is such lovely stuff.
That’s really pretty and practical too. Now I want to make one.
This is so beautiful and impressive! I was feeling very smug about having finished my color choice/gauge swatch for the BOAS and, after reading this, started thinking about the Color Explosion Throw from seasons past that still needs two long seams to finish… the ends are all woven in or spit spliced, it’s blocked, and really, that’s all that’s needed. You will be my inspiration this week Ann oh Seam Queen, off to the cedar chest I go!
Ann, I just love your enthusiasm and your thought process. What an amazing way to show off the colors of Jane! I had thought I was done making MDK yarn blankets after two Blankets of Joy, but this is very tempting and ever so beautiful. Thank you for sharing your ideas with us! This was such a fun post to start today with.