What to Knit Holiday 2013 1 - Blankets

Dishcloths Make Great Blanket Squares

 Up Up and Away cloth as knit/photographed
 by neothecat on Ravelry

If you're afraid you won't finish a blanket in time for the holidays but you really want to try, you're in luck!  Dishcloths make great blanket squares. If you finish enough to sew together for a blanket, huzzah!  If not, wrap those handmade, 100% cotton cloths around some fancy soap and give the cloths themselves as a gift.  Pick one or two cloths with a theme your recipient will love, and make several of them.  Then make some plain squares (much faster to knit!) for the rest of the blanket.  The pattern squares make a fun accent!  Check Ravelry.com (you'll have to join) and Knitting on the Net for hundreds of dishcloths and blanket squares to get you started.

Baby Blanket in a Snap

Bunny Hop Moon and Stars

Crystal Palace Yarns offers the Bunny Hop Moon and Stars blanket.  It's a simple knit, and can be made in any solid color.  Pick a color in coordination with the rest of the baby's bedding, or any color that you love.  This particular pattern doesn't have open work for tiny fingers and toes to get tangled in!  It's a quick knit in knit and purl only.  Most of the major yarn manufacturers offer dozens to hundreds of free patterns featuring their yarns, so if you're in need of ideas, visit the website of your favorite yarn company, and browse through their patterns. 
Afghans and Lap Robes


Lacy Waves Afghan

Most of us saw handmade afghans and lap robes growing up, over the back of the couch, on Grandma's favorite chair, or across the end of the bed in the guest room.  They saw a lot of action, too.  Drafty nights, bouts of the flu, and games of "tent" with the cousins at holidays were just a few of the things making these blankets a family essential.  If you're looking to add one to your family, consider some of the classic designs.  The Lacy Waves Afghan comes from Bernat Yarn Studios.  It's a lovely variation on the classic striped feather and fan lace afghan.  It's a quick and simple knit in big yarn with big needles. 

You don't have to match the yarn type, brand, or fiber in these blankets.  Make what works for you.  If you need it to be washable, try superwash wool or acrylic.  If you want it to be hypo-allergenic, baby alpaca, cotton, and most synthetics will work.  Just match the yarn weight and needle size and you'll be fine.  Slight variations in gauge aren't so important here, as fit isn't a concern.

More of a Challenge


Argyle Cable Knit Afghan

Ready to show off your best needlework?  Then try Spinrite's Argyle Cable Knit Afghan.  Intarsia, cables, duplicate stitch and finishing skills are all on display on this beautiful blanket.  Varying the colors will make it perfect for any man, woman, or children on your list.  Make it as vibrant or subtle as you like. 




The Over the Rainbow Blanket from Drops Design will also present a challenge, and though it looks harder than it is, it will definitely impress.  It's made with color-pooling variegated yarns like Classic Elite's Liberty Wool, Universal Poems, or the various Noro offerings.  Check with the staff at your Local Yarn Shop to confirm if your yarn choice will work for the rainbow effect.

What are you making this year?

Life and Family and a Blanket

It's been a long, strange summer.  I was very ill this spring and summer, as was my father in law.  I recovered, but sadly, he did not.  Lou is in the final days/weeks of his life, and he's still teaching us all.

Lou went from being uncomfortable to being hospitalized over the period of a couple of weeks.  He is in incredible pain, but he never complains.  He's calm, patient, funny, and dignified.  His only concerns are for the welfare of his family.  Though bedridden at home now, he still wants to babysit his great-grandchildren.  Though unable to keep solid food down, he still tried his granddaughter's "healthy" smoothie, to be polite.  It didn't go well, but I'll never forget the gesture.

I wanted to help him somehow, and as a knitter I realized making an afghan would be a natural choice.  His favorite color is blue - "not too dark, but like the sky today.  It's always been blue."  But by the time I had sourced the yarn, I realized I'll never finish it in time for him to see or enjoy it. 

I'm doing the standard family vigil, caring for my mother in law, doing her housekeeping, serving coffee to out of town relatives, and hearing all the family stories that go by in these times.  Everyone is laughing and visiting, including Lou.  He once had a red convertible, and my mother in law used to drive it when they were dating even though she hadn't had lessons or a license.  Lou's grandfather used to make wine in the basement, and he had a special way of leaving the spigot so he could tell if anyone had been "tasting" it.  The "kids", now in their late fifties, just learned how he always caught them! 

Lou greets and thanks each visitor for coming.  He stays awake and makes conversation for hours, but the moment guests leave he closes his eyes and sleeps.  He doesn't do it out of pride.  It's respect for the people who've made the effort to visit.  Even though he's too weak to walk, he wants to holds the babies.  He'll keep tasting the food pressed on him by well-meaning loved ones.  That's Lou - kind, funny, respectful, patient, and dignified.  He's shown us how to live, and he's teaching us how to die.

I think I'll make the blanket anyway.  It will be impossible to work on it or use it without thinking of the kind man who inspired it.  I'll share the pattern with you soon.

A Swatch Journey

Swatches have such a strange reputation!  Some people look at them as a necessary evil, others a waste of time, and still others love them and see them as a resource.



Cascade 220 sampler afghan.  Pattern available.



My experiences with swatches have included all of the above.  And then I took a journey.  I had come back knitting after a hiatus of several years, and had knit quite a few projects.  I was worried, though, because I would read a pattern and not be able to remember how to do certain techniques I used to zip through with ease 20 years ago.  I very quickly felt boxed in with what I was able to do, and phobic that I might get into a project only to discover I didn't know how to finish it.  So I decided to swatch every skill I had any interest in or possible future need for.

It was just a notion until I saw a sampler afghan that a friend had crocheted.  Aha!  A possible use for all these swatches beyond a simple learning project!  Shortly after that I was off to the races.  I started simple with relearning stripes.  One swatch down.  Then intarsia blocks.  I probably worked and ripped two swatches for every one I finished in the beginning.  (My daughter ripped out a finished one early on because she had seen Mommy do it.  I cried.)  I was sure I was doomed.

I was also crazy busy during the day with work and four kids and a very sick mother in law, and a bunch of other madness.  When I wanted to knit, I only had a couple of minutes to maybe an hour.  I couldn't start a new project or take a class, so I kept cranking out swatches.  Cables...  Basketweaves...  Bobbles were nearly the end of me and my knitting career. 

Life settled down, and I had 19 swatches.  I realized I really had a shot at finishing this sampler afghan after all.  And as decided to repeat some of the blocks I was amazed at how much easier they were the second and then the third time.  The blanket ended up being 36 blocks large, and although I can tell which blocks were early swatches and which I did at the end, it looks pretty good, even now, 5 years later.  I'm grateful to my swatch journey for reinforcing (and sometimes inventing) my knitting skills.  And I'm very grateful when I see my kids cozied up under the finished afghan.  I made that!  I learned so much. Swatches and I are friends now.