Monitor Me

I've spent a lot of time scouring Knitting Pattern Central for some patterns that would suit my needs for this round of the Knitting Olympics. I wanted to find patterns that would help me use up some of my stash because going out to purchase new yarn during my extended period of unemployment isn't necessarily going to fly. I also wanted to make something for a baby boy and a baby girl, born of two friends of mine. The girl is going to be moving into the 3-6 mo period right away and the boy is just three weeks old. So, this is what I came up with.

I'm going to make a baby blanket for the fellow out of the green yarn, pictured to the right.

"But that's a scarf," you say.
"Au contraire!" I say, "That's the beginning of a scarf that I'm going to rip apart and make into a blanket."

1. I have three skeins of that wool, so I'll have enough.
2. It came with a pattern from the manufacturer, so as long as I don't screw it up, I'll be able to make a blanket that will compliment the wool.
3. The pattern from the manufacturer looks interesting enough that I won't want to poke out my eyeballs with my knitting needles, but it looks easy enough that I... won't want to poke out my eyeballs with my knitting needles.

There's only one small hitch. The needles that I need are currently occupied.


That lovely purple thing, underneath my saucily posing cat, was supposed to be a bunting bag. It's not going to be that, though, because I realized as I started doing the decreases into the hooded area that I was going to run out of wool, and with no income to purchase that little bit, especially before the deadline of the Olympics (TONIGHT!), I was left with a bit of a quandary. The thought of ripping out all of that knitting just about made me want to cry. I started that particular pattern, like, four years ago. I'm so freakin' tired of it I'm not going to transfer it to another set of needles, transfer it back to the rounds, and then continue on after the Olympics. I'm more likely to tear it off in a fit of rage and throw it into a snowbank. So I decided to rip out the decreases (fortunately only about six rows of knitting) and continue it as a small, car-seat appropriate, baby blanket. That also means that I've got to finish knitting this beast today, so that I can use the needles tonight to cast on my Knitting Olympics blanket.

"Uh, Rilla. You've knit that thing for four years. How are you going to knit an entire blanket in the two weeks that the Olympics are on?" you ask.
"I'm not! I'm going to make a blanket and a sweater!"

The sweater looks like a very easy thing to do, and I wanted two projects to come out of this whole challenge. So, I plan on using the pink wool (pictured to the left) as the primary colour and the blue for the decorative embellishments.

The plan is to cast on the blanket this evening. I won't be watching the Olympics, I'll be playing Werewolf, and I don't expect to get any significant progress done because I'll want to pay attention to the game. My goal is simply to get it cast on because I don't want to learn a pattern whilst visiting. I'll cast on the sweater when I've had so much of the blanket that I want to scream. I predict that will occur sometime around day four.

If you want to play along with me and the rest of the strange knitters, it's not too late! The Yarn Harlot has a sign-up link in this post. Let me know if you're involved so that I can be encouraged by the progress of others!