cables – not your average crochet

giganto blanket progress

March 18, 2016 by HannahOwens 11 Comments

It’s been over 2 months since I’ve shared an update on my Aspen blanket that I have lovingly dubbed “the blanket everyone wants” (well, they seemed to be all the rage this winter). You hold the yarn double so I don’t know why I got an odd number of balls, but I’ve finished 16 balls of Garnstudio DROPS Andes in 0100 Ecru and this is what I have:

Not Your Average Crochet's Aspen Blanket

Far from my estimated 60″ wide, it’s about 45. Granted, I wasn’t stretching it at all and I think it will grow over time, but still, I was off on that guess. Also, I thought 16 balls might be enough to finish the blanket. It is not. It’s only about 36″ tall (again unstretched). I MIGHT be OK if this was 2/3 of a blanket, meaning I might be happy if I ordered 7 more balls to go with my extra 1. At $7.15 a ball, though, that’s $50.05 not counting S&H, and I just can’t do that right now. That’ll put this blanket at over $150 worth of yarn. I hate putting that much into one project because I’ll be so worried about it getting messed up that I might not use and enjoy it, but this was one of the cheapest super bulky yarns in wool that I could find. Maybe I should keep blankets acrylic, but wool blankets are so much warmer! Guess there are pros and cons to both.

Not Your Average Crochet's Aspen Blanket

I’m really sad but I guess this will have to go into hibernation mode for a while until I can get the yarn. The plus side is that I still haven’t broken my New Year’s Resolution to not buy yarn (although when I do buy the yarn to finish this I’m not sure it’ll count against me, since it’s to finish a WIP that I thought I had enough yarn for). Also, Chris and I both needed a pair of new shoes this month so unfortunately that has to take precedence over yarn, hehe. We got Chris some new kitchen Crocs because his current ones are old and literally falling apart (they’re heavy duty Crocs made specifically for working in kitchens, without holes in the top and with extra tread on the bottom and padding on the inside), and I finally had to replace my Rainbows sandals after about 9 years of constant wear.

My Wing Chun lessons are going great — we got to stay about 20 minutes extra last time and our teacher taught us the first 5 steps of the wooden dummy form, which was really cool. I’ve been trying to practice at home on a wall but it has corners, which hurt my arms, and it doesn’t have arms for me to practice blocks. I’ve looked at practice dummies but even the ones made with PVC are over $500. Why does everything from yarn to shoes to practice equipment have to be so expensive? Ugh.

Sorry, I’m a bit grumpy, so I’ll sign off for now, but I do appreciate you stopping by! I have plenty of other WIPs going too so hopefully I’ll see you soon with updates on those, or maybe something even cooler!

Filed Under: knitting Tagged With: blanket, cables, crafts, knitting, throw

giganto blanket: begin!

January 12, 2016 by HannahOwens 4 Comments

So far I’m keeping to my resolutions: I haven’t bought any more yarn, I’ve been working on those crochet patterns, and I’ve got a few projects going. I’d like to share one in particular with you, my ASPEN Blanket by Go-Girl Knitting (which I’m affectionately calling The Blanket Everyone Wants, because ecru/cream colored chunky-knit cabled blankets are EVERYWHERE right now, everyone really does seem to want one)! Here’s what I’ve got so far:

It’s probably going to be about 60″ wide (hard to tell yet) and I’ve got 17 balls of Garnstudio DROPS Andes in 0100 Ecru (Super Bulky, 65% wool, 35% alpaca) so I’ll keep going until I run out!

I’m loving my progress so far and I know I’ll love the blanket when I’m done, but I’ve got a couple of qualms. Let me make you a list!

The pattern is $6 but it turns out to be a really simple pattern that repeats, and it all fits on a plain 1 pg PDF. A little expensive for what you get, methinks, especially considering the next 2 points…
The pattern calls for US 50 needles but many of the projects already made on Ravelry used US 35/36 needles because the 50s made the blanket too loose (even though the yarn is held double throughout). I therefore started with my US 36 needles but it was STILL too loose, so I frogged and went down to a US 19.
Because of the needle size changes I made, I also had to adjust the pattern to keep the width of the blanket about the same, so I added 2 of the pattern repeats, making the CO jump from 72 to 106.

On the positive side, it’s working up fairly quickly and it’s still soft and plushy! I used the long-tailed cast-on for a neat-looking but stretchy bottom edge, I’m slipping the 1st st of each row purl-wise for neater side edges, and I think I’m going to try to make the yarn joins as invisible as possible by “spit-splicing,” which I learned about via YouTube video (yes, it is what it sounds like it is).

So far I’m really enjoying it, and I’ll probably update with photos on Instagram in between updates here, if you’re interested in finding me there!

Well, that’s all for now, thanks for stopping by!

Filed Under: knitting Tagged With: blanket, cables, crafts, knitting, super bulky, throw

finished Hermione’s HBP hat

December 16, 2011 by HannahOwens 2 Comments

I finished my knitted Hermione HBP hat, the pattern for which is on Ravelry here. I’m honestly a little disappointed, which is really sad since I spent SO MUCH TIME on this! I took so much care with the cables and learned new stitches to make the holes and everything, and the hat is short. I wanted it to come down longer — I wish I could go back and add 10 more rows of the chart pattern. I guess one drawback of knitting hats bottom up is that you can’t try it on as you go. Maybe it will stretch? I hope so — It’s so pretty and I’d so wear it if it was a little longer!

Edit: It’s my fault the hat was short — I was stupidly skipping 2 rows every so often and I skipped a total of 10 rows. I’m going to have to make this hat again sometime and do it right!