Hat on Top, Coat Below
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Baby Blanket with No Baby
May 26, 2020
When I shared the hat I knit earlier in the pandemic, I mentioned that my knitting stuff wasn’t in good order and had some ideas for the first steps in remedying that. I’m pleased to say I managed to find the motivation to make it so. I retrieved the things that were up in the pod and went through them to see what was there before putting them in the front hall cupboard where they’re not so out of sight/out of mind. There’s still much organization to be done, but it felt very satisfying to get that much accomplished. It also felt very good to find the data backup CDs I’ve been looking for since soon after we moved four years ago … they were stuck behind some of the knitting stuff way in the back of the Hoosier cabinet. Thinking about how much time I spent looking other places for them doesn’t feel good, so I’m trying to not do that.
After this first bit of reorganizing, I reanimated one of the works in progress I’d come across: a baby blanket intended for a baby who is now in grade school. I’m not sure when I started it; there was a KnitPicks catalog from March 2011 in the bag, which seems way earlier than I would have known the baby in question was coming, as she wasn’t born until fall of 2012. I’m guessing I’d used the same knitting bag for the baby blanket before this one, which was a 2011 project. I would have said I started this in 2012, except some of the yarn seems to be from 2014 if the dates on my stash photos are to be believed. So maybe I didn’t start it until the baby was a year and half old, which doesn’t seem out of the question. When and why I abandoned it, I have no idea.
Once I picked it back up, I had to figure out how I was knitting it. It’s based on the Geometric Scarf from the book No-Pattern Knits, which doesn’t give any stitch counts, just describes the method. I hadn’t left myself good notes about what I was doing, so it took a while for me to get back on track, and I ripped out more sections than I like to think about before I got into a groove again. I worked on it while Mr. and I watched stuff on the tv/computer, picking colors for each section as I went along (the only rules were dark colors for the border triangles and try to keep contrast between the sections). This past weekend, I finished it, weaving the last of the ends in (I’d been pretty good about keeping up with those as I went, so it wasn’t bad) then washing and “blocking” it (didn’t use a board, just patted it to shape on some towels). And … ta da!!!
Since the baby this was meant for is now eight, well past blanket time, I’m going to have to figure out something else to do with it. Maybe wait until someone else has a baby, but my friends and relatives have pretty much stopped doing that. Maybe make new friends?
Next, I think I’m going to pick up the socks in progress I also found going through the knitting stuff I brought downstairs. Not that I remember how to make socks at this point but I’m sure I can learn again. I do like having something to focus that part of my attention that wants to wander while I watch shows, that’s for sure.