FO Friday: My first charity blanket

Since starting my  new job, I've joined a great knitting group that focuses on charity projects. I've mentioned it several times and on Monday, I gave you most of a look at most of the finished blanket. I want to share a good finished object picture to celebrate its completion.

This was the first project that I brought to the group finished. I felt a weight lifted once I turned it in. It is odd and unnecessary, but I was carrying around some guilt for all the free yarn they had given me with out having given them anything in return. To defend myself slightly, I took 5 different balls of yarn for this blanket and 2 giant skeins for the second blanket before I brought this in. Now I feel I've proved that I will uphold my end of the bargain and I can be trusted with massive amounts of yarn.

Hubby has been playing and learning with his fancy camera so I've started asking for him to help me take better pictures of my completed knitting. He seems more interested in portraits, but I really appreciate the time he is putting into great lighting and staging for me. They are so much nicer than the quick cell phone shots I'd be sharing otherwise. Thanks babe!

Adventures in Blocking Acrylic

If you learn anything about me from this post, please let it be that I'm not very adversarial when it comes to knitting. I have my opinions and preferences, but I don't really participated in the heated debates about how things should be done. Knitting brings me joy, and I believe that other people should knit in whatever ways bring them joy. As a cheap knitter I often encounter (and slowly back away from) debates about yarn and fiber. While I wouldn't consider myself part of the anti-acrylic camp. I don't generally knit with it and I find the texture rough. I wouldn't buy it without a very special purpose, but I also wouldn't throw away a bag full if it fell in my lap.

This claim has been put to the test because my charity knitting group gives us yarn for our projects. That's right, free yarn for all the knitting I could dream of doing as long as I'm willing to give my FOs to charity. It is all 100% acrylic yarn. It also appears to all be worsted. I am not about to complain. It is the most amazing set up I have ever encountered. Now I find myself working with acrylic yarn on almost a daily basis. Has it changed my opinion at all? Not really. I limit my time working with the charity projects, because they start to feel rough on my fingers. Though all of my other projects feel like butter sliding through my hands. So it is free yarn and it helps my appreciate my expensive yarn more. It is delightful on so many levels.

I recently finished my first charity project and fell right into a subargument of the pro and anti acrylic debate: Can you block acrylic? After reading articles and watching videos from both sides, I've reached an initial opinion and I'm using my charity projects to test it. First let me hash out the argument as I understand it:

Anti: You cannot wet block acrylic. I tried this with some of my very first learning to knit projects, and I can confirm that soaking a project and laying it out to dry will not do you much good. It also won't do you much harm.

Pro: Steam! Wet blocking is not the only type of blocking and you should choose a method appropriate to your project and fiber. In the case of acrylic, that's steam blocking.

Anti: That's not blocking; it's melting! The hot steam is melting the plastic based fiber into submission and by definition ruining the yarn.

Pro: It works, and it works better than wet blocking because you don't have to re-block every time you wash you FO.

This last argument is the one that sold me. I generally believe that blocking makes projects look better and I do it with everything except my toys (though I've had some toy pieces that made me consider it.) I am not a perfectionist when it comes to my knitting. I'm often fudging fixes rather than correcting mistakes, but I do want my final piece to look its best. I have a clothing steamer that we keep out and use on almost a daily basis, so there really was no hassle to trying. I finished seaming and sewing in ends on my Dream Catcher and it looked a little sad. I wrapped it up in an icord boarder and it still had a wonkyness to it that I couldn't shake.

As you can see the squares didn't want to be square and the boarder was curling under in some places and curling out in others. It is not what I wanted to present to the group as my very first project. Since this was an experiment, I let myself be a bit lazy. I didn't pin this or measure out perfect squares. I just threw a beach towel on my table and laid the blanket down on top (RS down per all the instructions I've seen online.) I went at it with  my steamer pretty haphazardly. I tugged here and patted there and really avoided overly committing or stressing myself.

I'm happy to report that even with my poor attempt it calmed down nicely. Here it is drying. It was a little damp so I left it for a bit and it held its shape wonderfully. I'm certain with a measuring tape and a right angle I could have made perfect squares and straight lines. I only blocked the one side. I've seen some tutorials on crochet blankets recommend doing both sides, but knitting tutorials say only the back. I think the reason is that one side is all that would be necessary for something like this and if you are working very textured, I could see the benefit of only blocking the back and not 'flattening' the front.

My initial conclusions. It works and it is worth it. My blanket now has the pretty finished look that a blocked FO should have. I didn't wash it to test if the blocking was permanent. I suspect that both the pro and anti acrylics are right here and it is a case of slight melting. My yarn didn't get shiny, there were no plastic drippy balls like if I took an open flame to it, and it certainly didn't make the texture rough or unpleasant. I don't plan on this yarn being anything other than this blanket so if I've just convinced it of the same, so be it. My next blanket has a hint of laciness to it, so we'll see if blocking can help open up a project.

Hubby has taken some FO pictures of this project with his fancy camera so hopefully I'll be sharing those soon.

WIP Wednesday: Treasured Heirloom Blanket

Last time I talked about this blanket, I didn't share much other that a photo. We had friends visiting and they were far more fun than my laptop. Since then, I've continued to make progress.

In fact, I've passed the halfway point and have started the decreases. This is the project that I had queued up and planned before I was anywhere near finishing the first charity blanket and it has been everything I hoped for: mostly mindless comfort knitting that will work up quickly for the charity group. Sadly though, I think this is my last day taking it on the subway. It has just become too bulky and doesn't fit in my bag anymore. It is going to make great tv knitting at home. Now I just have to decide what to take on my commute. 

For Charity

I've decided to create one more exception to my rule. One of my knit groups, Pints 'n Purls, does periodic charity projects. To strictly follow my rule, I wouldn't be able to knit gifts for friends and particpate in the charity projects at the same time, but participating is something I want to do, so I've decided that I am allowing myself. There are still some restrictions though. For now, I've decided that I am only going to work on these projects on Fridays. This means that I get subway time, and I go out for dinner and knitting with a girlfriend of mine that night every week. That is a fair amount of knitting without overtaking my other projects. I'm slowly becoming a more promiscuous knitter.

Now that I've reworked the rules, on to the fun stuff. The group is currently working on squares for a patchwork blanket. I decided to use my stitchionary to play with some cute knit/purl patterns. I am really happy with this first one. It is Pie Crust Basket-weave. I like how tight the basket-weave looks, but the fabric isn't overly dense. This was made with some dish cloth cotton, so it doesn't have much for drape, but I think with the right fiber it would drape nicely.

Big on Blankets

Because of a time crunch I am working exclusively and almost constantly on the baby blanket. As I predicted it has slowed way down now that it is over 200 stitches per round. It is no worry though because this pattern is a ton of fun to watch grow. Even though I am less than half way done with it, I've already noticed a lack of the 'is there enough yarn' pressure that I find a little bit of in every project I do. No matter how many extra balls I have, every time I finish one ball and add another, there is a little voice in my head sharing with me how much time I will have wasted if I run out of yarn. This blanket is going to be a square. It started out as a square and it is currently a square. If I run out of yarn I can just stop and no one will be the wiser. The voice is still there a little bit, but I'm not worried because I have a plan. Even if I completely messed up on my yardage and I don't have enough to cover a baby, I could just add a quirky band of color in the middle while reinforcements arrive. (Don't worry. I have plenty of yarn and I'm not going to need any more to get the project done. The voice just keeps me awake at night sometimes so plans have to be made to prove to her that I know what I'm doing. ;) )

In other blanket news, almost a year ago I received a blanket in the mail. Well, it was the beginning of a blanket anyway. I added my little part and sent it on. Now it has made its way back to the original knitter and is almost finished! You can still see my part, it is that light yellow bit on the left side. She is going to add on one last section and maybe a border. Then, off to charity it will go. When it is done, I'll update with where we sent it.

A Little Love for the Homeless and Fuzzy

The majority of my stash is partially used up yarn that I don't have any plans for, yet I can't bear to throw away. I decided that charity knitting like squares for blankets, preemie hats, and whatnot would be a great way to use it up. So I picked up Knitting for Peace for a little guidance and inspiration. Now my first stash busting charity project is done!


This is a snuggle. A snuggle is a blanket for the kennels in an animal shelter. I made it with some left over Baby Bee Sweet Delight. I held together a strand of the Ladybug Ombre and the Soft Licorice. It is just a garter stitch square, and I added an i-cord border because I wanted to practice the technique before I dove in on a baby blanket. Mine turned out to be just over 17" square, so I may be given to a small dog who is stuck in a cold cell.

This was a great project for when I was sitting at my computer playing video games or just too tired to really concentrate on anything. I could easily pick it up and put it down whenever I wanted, and I didn't fret over any mistakes because the animals aren't going to notice. You can learn more about the Snuggles Project from their website. They also have a listing of shelters currently in need of snuggles.

My yarn arrived for the baby blanket so I'm going to go cast on. Since Rent closed last weekend I think I'll pop it in the dvd player to have my own little good bye viewing.