A Blankie Tale

Ok I am back with a knitting story for you. Yeah yeah long time no hear from me all that jazz. I said I would try to be better, it failed let's get on with the story mmkay?

I quit my job last year, no really it was just last year. I know Covid times everything runs together, you blink and a month has gone by.

Anyways! I brought my friend some lunch one day at her house. For our stories purpose she will be called H for now. We sat on her lovely patio and talked while I knit a sock. She expressed surprise that I could just knit away even though she had seen me do it before. She had never seen me do it for so long and while chatting so long too. What we had not seen each other in a while!

As we drew near to the end of our time she got this funny look on her face and said something along the lines of I have a favor to ask... feel free to say no...

I had helped her pick out a pattern for a baby blanket almost 2 years before. She had bought the yarn and made some valiant efforts at starting the blanket. It was ripped back a few times. A different color was used to start because it is really hard to see what you are doing on navy blue yarn!

She showed me the bag of yarn and asked if she could pay me to knit the blanket? I said no but I would consider doing it for her without payment. And reserved the right to look into it and decide it was not something I wanted to do. I abhor obligation knitting. Even when it goes well it makes me feel bad.

So I took the bag of yarn off to my house that I strongly suspected I would be moving away from in the coming months. 

And I started knitting and sending pictures to her. Seriously my phone is full of pictures of this blanket!

  

First we had a wee start that needed some stitching up. (Gorgeous bee knitting bag by PhoenixYarn)

Then we had a little star encased in two sides of a lighter blue star. This shot also points out how I have learned to adjust things for how I think. I rewrite the pattern in many cases. Breaking it down to portions so I am not continually flipping through sheets and trying to remember where I am and what I have done.

Mellie cheered me on from her penthouse Ikea cart bed. She loved that spot!

Burt cheered me on from his new expanded observation deck. This was where my work monitors had been set up. He much prefers Momma's knitting work to computer work.

Along came a red stripe of star.

And soon enough the red stripe was done. I loved how fast these early rounds were. I soon learned that I needed to at stitch markers in the indentations for where the knitting directions changed. 

The next maroon stripe took a bit longer. Still very fun to watch what was emerging.

 I sent pictures of progress and the upcoming colors. So much fun to host a non-knitting knitalong.

Seriously this thing just kept growing!

Burt stuck in there with me and cheered me along. He thinks everyone needs a good knitting supervisor.

Five colors done and only feeling like I had just begun.

Seriously everyone needs a knitting supervisor like Burt!

Burt and I started to get worried about how much of this yarn was left and how far we had to go to finish the row. Burt is not a big fan of yarn chicken.

And so the time came for me to make some decisions. We ran out of this last color with four-ish rows of ten stitches per row to go. I fudged a corner to make it work.

Knitting supervisor Burt declared it undetectable!

Especially when you position your belly over top. Honestly I have forgotten which point it was too.

Mellie and I considered in depth if the current yarn situation was going to work. 

We pulled out the scale and weighed the remaining yarns and the blankie. We calculated generally how much yarn was used for each stripe. We did the math. We talked with Auntie H and formulated a new plan. 

Operation send Auntie H back to the yarn store for more yarn!

What like all your plans have secret covert names. Mellie and I are basic doncha know?

It was around this time that our packing day was fast approaching and I made the tough decision to suspend blankie knitting till the move was complete. So this is where I will leave you with this blankie tale for now. 

But never fear intrepid knitters the blankie made it safely to New Mexico and has seen actual knitting time since too. I don't want to leave you with too much of a cliffhanger.