Unravelling: One Square Forwards, Many Squares Back

After blogging about my happy rainbow blanket plans I got all the squares out and laid them on the floor, guesstimating how the final arrangement would look when I'd added in the new colours.

And then, with a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach, I realised that some of the squares were the wrong size. In fact, quite a lot of them were. Sometimes you can get away with this when making a patchwork blanket - e.g. one slightly smaller square will stretch a bit when you sew it to surrounding larger squares - but lots of squares that were the wrong size? all sewn in colour rows so there'd be lines of large squares and lines of smaller ones? Disaster!

 

I don't know exactly how this happened, but I suspect it has something to do with the fact that knitting blanket squares is what I do when I'm ill or tired-out at the end of a long day. Half-awake, germ-filled noggins are bound to make mistakes, I guess! Ah well.

There was nothing for it but to start unravelling the squares so the can be re-knitted to the correct size. Such a faff but it can't be helped (without the invention of time travel) and after all these hours of knitting I want this blanket to look great, not all lumpy and mis-shapen because I couldn't be bothered to correct my mistakes.

As you can see I've got quite a few squares to re-knit before I can start adding all those yummy new colours to the blanket. And don't be fooled by those "finished" pink squares. They're just squares I've not got round to unravelling yet!

I have, at least, managed to knit one square with one of my newly-purchased colours. Hurrah!

I'm going to be double-checking the size of my squares very carefully from now on...

Last Minute Crafting

Have you made any Christmas gifts this year? I made one - a pair of grey & blue wristwarmers for my sister, knitted with some of the yarn I had left over from knitting my sky blanket.

Unfortunately, crafty disaster stuck a few days ago: I managed to snip a hole in one of the wristwarmers while I was sewing it up! It couldn't be rescued and I didn't have any more yarn left to knit a replacement. Oops. (Top tip: if you make a mistake because you're tired, don't try and fix that mistake with scissors when you're still tired. It probably won't end well).

I decided to take this as a sign from the universe that the wristwarmers were insufficiently awesome, so I went to John Lewis to buy some new, more awesome yarn:

It has sparkly silver bits in it! Woohoo!

Fingers crossed I can get the new pair knitted in time for Christmas morning :)

Trial and Error

Yesterday I turned my attention to the stash of crafty supplies and projects that are not neatly arranged in my little office, but stowed away under the bed or in the spare room long neglected and gathering dust... I'm going to try to be ruthless and clear a few bits out for the UK Etsy supplies swap group and I'm also determined to try to actually finish some projects! First up: an almost-finished blanket that just needs another 12 squares.
Unfortunately, it's been so long since I knitted any squares for this I'd forgotten what size knitting needles to use and just had to guess. I guessed wrong! Oh well.

I'm really not very good at knitting - sewing has always been much more my thing - and get in an awful muddle whenever I try knitting more than just blanket squares. I knitted some scarves once, but the sort that only a mother would love! Knitting simple squares is incredibly relaxing though, and it's an incredible feeling when you have a whole blanket you made yourself. Here's two I made earlier (now owned by my mother & sister) ... the biggest things I've ever made: