Rescued

It pays to have friends who think outside the box.  Friends one step removed from the maelstrom of a disaster knitting project.  Friends who can, from their un-involved, vantage point,  see the forest through the trees.

When I last posted about my un-giftable,  'holey' baby blanket, it looked like this.

  

Some kind readers offered a few suggestions for repair and rescue.  Laurie M suggested - I thought -  a ribbon woven through the holes.   Laurie later corrected my interpretation to say she meant to sew a ribbon over the holes.  Great idea.  Marie H suggested I crochet a chain along the holes to close them.  Great idea.  Since I had no ribbon in the house but did have a crochet hook, that is what I did. 

Baby blanket rescued. 

Good enough to gift - and dang if it doesn't look as if that was the original idea. 

Now it is back on the machine for the trim.  6 stitches over 8 are picked up and 16 rows knit.  A few stitches are skipped and the process repeated. It gives a loopy kind of I-Cord-ish trim.

 

Trim that will probably drive both baby and Mom crazy but it does add a bit of design flare.

My goal was to finish it before my grand kids come for their 'Gramma-cation' as machine knitting and kids are not my thing.  But that will not happen as they arrive today.  Hopefully there will be some stolen moments over the next two weeks so blankee doesn't have to remain hung up for the entire summer.   

As always, when the grand kids arrive, Grandma cannot get to blogging on a regular basis.  So I wish you all a wonderful summer.  Thanks for reading and I will check in as time  and Internet access in Hearst allows.  See you on my regular beat in late August.

Thursdays Are For Knit Group

Those of you who missed our WWKIP day last Thursday, check out this week's edition of the local paper.  The library ladies took our picture and wrote a lovely little article/advertisement about us.

This week, we were minus the goodies, and back in our normal digs, but having just as much fun.

Ingrid arrived wearing a very ethnic dress sent to her by her son in Germany.

 

My gosh, Ingrid.  If one of my sons ever gave me a dress, I'd faint.  After last Thursday's post, an anonymous commenter asked what yarn Ingrid favours.  Koigu is her go-to brand but the piece she was working on last Thursday was a section of a skirt and she was using sock yarn.  Four, 100 gram balls for her skirt.

Wilma is heading towards the finish line on her crocheted, knitted sweater.  What would one call that?  Cro-knitting?  The top portion is knit and the bottom is crocheted.  It is a lovely way to edge a garment.  Wilma's piece with the bottom half in the open crochet, will be perfect for layering.

Nan had lots of show & tell today.  First up the socks.

 

 All knit with leftover Koigu.  Didn't she do a great job in co-ordinating the colours?  Then her real works of art  -  two Stonnington Shawls.

 

 The pinkish one was knit with Madeleinetosh, and the blue one with Koigu. (ETA - Nan emailed to say the blue  shawl is knit with Tanis Fibre Arts yarn, not Koigu. Thanks, Nan.)  She said after mastering EZ's instructions, the second one took half as long as the first one.  Gorgeous, Nan.

Jean was wearing yet another, great, summer top.

 

 Knit a long time ago, Jean said, with pink - ish cotton,  it will be another great layering piece for her Yukon camping trip.  She leaves next week  and will be gone most of the summer.  Have fun, Jean.

There were so many sock knitters at knit group today, the uninitiated might have thought it was a convention.  Bonnie, Gail, Nicki - all knitting socks.  There will be warm feet in Meaford next winter.

We missed Sharon today. She went down to the big smoke to hear Hillary Clinton speak. I am sure Sharon  enjoyed the speech, but really all most of us want to know is - 'Has she done anything with her hair?'  Come on Hillary - it's not your best look.

Another great afternoon of knitting.   Shawls, socks and sweaters. Productivity abounds.

An Ineffective Match

What happens when you pair  a knitter with mediocre, machine knitting skills together with inexpensive, acrylic yarn?  Not something that can be gifted, that's for sure.

Bare with me on the details here.  This blanket is knit by casting on  enough stitches to give the desired, blanket dimension.  After knitting two, edge rows, every following  row is short rowed, then 'long' rowed back.   ' Bring one needle out of work, knit two rows.  Repeat until all needles are out of work.  Then repeat the process in reverse until all needles are back in work.'  This knits one quarter of the blanket.   

The problem is -   well, take a look. 

From  a distance,   it looks acceptable.  But up close ? 

 

Either the knitter or the yarn has issues. Or both. Either way, the rows of holes  are not nice enough for a gift.  Laurie M suggested I thread a ribbon through them.  While a good idea, I am not sure they are even good enough for that decorative solution.

Now, the question is, do I re-knit?  Having already knit it one and a half times, am I still interested?  Or  should I as  son #2 often advises,  "Cut your losses, Mom." 

The thing about 'cheap' yarn is  -   it often isn't.  While not a fortune, enough was spent to make this fixed-income senior seek forgiveness for the idea  of throwing it in the garbage. But seeing how poorly it knits and feels to the hand, do I want to spend more time with it?  Probably not.    Do I want to knit a gazillion baby sweaters, hats and booties with el-cheapo yarn just to satisfy  my banker?  Probably not. 

Think I'll think on it for another day.