The Value of a Hand Knit Baby Blanket

Last year, at Husband's request, I knit a baby blanket for a client of his. She was expecting her first grandson or something like that. Anyway, he was trying to curry favor so she'd keep sending business his way.

Apparently her daughter loved is so much, she's asked if I would make another one. She said she would pay for supplies and my time and of course if I couldn't she'd understand too.

This is my reply to my husband:
These are the specs on the blanket I made for Client's grandson last year. I record all the details of my knitting projects at Ravelry.com, which is how I am able to calculate the following.

Yarn:
(8 skeins Bernat Cotton Tots yarn x $4) + (1 ball Knitpicks Cotton Solid x $3.50) + (3 skeins Omega Sinfonia cotton yarn x $5.50) + (1 skein Tahki Stacy Charles Cotton Classic x $6) = $54.
Shipping and handling for mail ordered yarn and mileage for store-bought yarn not included.
All machine washable and machine dryable yarn for easy care by busy parents.

Other supplies:
Knitting needle: Clover Bamboo Circular needles, US size 11, 36" = $12
Crochet hook: Boye Aluminum crochet hook size N = $2.25

Time:
Design time: Time spent looking over patterns, selecting yarn, deciding on what to make: 2 hrs

Preparation time: actually going to the stores to buy the yarns or order on-line. The yarns came from Michael's Arts and Crafts, Hobby Lobby and Needlenook in Atlanta and Knitpicks: 4 hrs.

Began actual knitting: January 27 2009
Completed February 26 2009
Estimate that I knit on it 1.5 hours a day (I knit at least an hour each night and I'd say 4 hours each weekend day, so we'll average it to 1.5 hours a day.)
Time: 6 hrs + (31 days x 1.5hrs) = 52.5 hours

Labor and value-added: 52.5 hours x $10 = $525
mileage not included

Total value of the blanket: $593.25

Look this over. If you think Client would be willing to pay me $593.25 for a baby blanket, I would be more than happy to take her commission. It would most like take more time to make this blanket because I imagine there would be a lot more back and forth as I look over possible patterns and yarns, send her the pictures for her approval or not, and so on until she and I agree on a pattern and colors.

If not, she can browse through Etsy.com for handmade items. This is the link for handknit baby blankets specifically: http://www.etsy.com/category/knitting/blanket/baby. Not all of the sellers will note what the material is made of, so it may be easy care cotton, cheapo acrylic (read: plastic), or hand wash wool.

Another option for handmade goods: Beehive Cooperative http://www.beehiveco-op.com/groupings/atlanta.asp

I am going to guess you will tell her that I am busy working on other projects right now and won't be able to do it. But please do tell her I'm glad her daughter enjoys the blanket I did make for her first child.

We'll see what he does.

ETA: Husband will tell Client I'm too busy now.

Babette

It is hot and humid in Atlanta. I have airconditioning and ceiling fan going. Therefore I have decided it's the perfect time to start a wool blanket.

What you see here is all the machine washable, worsted weight wool I have:

5 skeins cream

13 small balls of varying sizes in orange

8 balls red

5 balls purplish red

7 skeins green

4 skeins light blue

5 balls cornflower blue

4 balls medium blue

11 skeins dark blues

2 skeins brown

8 skeins black

Brands include Knitpicks, Phildar, Knitting Fever, Patons, Lang, Muskoka, and Lion Brand. Some I bought, others were given to me from my friends late mother's stash.

At bottom are strips of blues and greens from previous attempts to make a superwash blanket.

This time I will be making a crochet Babette blanket. I haven't finished the cotton stripy blanket yet, but the experience of dealing with all those ends to weave in drove me nuts. I'm knitting a hem to encase all those ends.

The beauty of crochet is that ends get encased in the crochet as I go along. Crochet also uses up a lot of yarn and I have a lot of yarn to use.

I've been wanting to make a Babette blanket for a long time and now that I have so much superwash wool, it's time to do it.

Boy or Girl?

Other than the opening ceremony, I haven't really made the Winter Olympics 2010 appointment watching.

Here's a gem from Jane Brocket's blog about the Olympics that I thought I'd share:

There are also some phenomenal thighs and gloriously weird outfits in the speedskating events - and the added entertainment of trying to guess from looking at the competitors whether we are watching a men's or a women's event.

The friend's baby blanket continues apace. Picture to come when I get onto to circular needles so it will lay flat. Otherwise you can't really tell what it looks like.

The friend's baby shower is Feb 25, one week away. At this pace, I think I'll make it. It's cotton yarn, so my arms, wrists, and elbows certainly are feeling it.

On Feb 25, I also have jury duty. I keep looking at the blue, green, yellow, and white yarn and think crochet blanket. I also think "crochet needle easier to get past courthouse security than pointy needles."

Actually, I took knitting needles into a courthouse on Monday with no problem. But still, I saw a crochet blanket in the background on Shades of Ray (watched it on Hulu.com) and have it in my head to crochet a blanket. Never mind that I have 6 unfinished projects, all hiding under the couch. I counted when I cleared out my knitting basket to make room for the Knitting Olympics baby blanket.

Shades of Ray was a cute movie, starring Zachary Levi (Chuck on "Chuck") as Ray, a half Pakistani-half white guy torn between his white girfriend Noelle and a new interest, Sana, a woman who's also Pakistani-half white. She's played by Sarah Shahi, who was on the L-Word.

It's a romantic comedy, with things to say about love, marriage (Ray's parents get a pretty good story line and Sana's parents to a lesser extent), family expectations, race, culture and self-awareness. Fran Kranz (Topher on "Dollhouse") plays Ray's best friend Sal. Sal was Topher as a clueless guy who doesn't understand women.

After I saw Shades of Ray and saw the connection to the L-Word, I was at the library and saw they had season one, discs 1 and 2 of the L-Word, so that came home with me. Have yet to watch it, or season 1 disc 1 of Mad Men.

In other TV watching news, I'm watching Sliders on Hulu. I understand that season 1 and 2 are good, and 3, 4, and 5 not so good. Lucky me that only seasons 1 and 2 are on Hulu. So far the sociologist in me is enjoying the different alternate Earths they go to. What if the USSR won the Cold War? What if penicillin and modern medicine was never invented? What if, what if, what if?

It's also funny to see the mid 1990s fashions and the total lack of cellphones.

bitten by gauge and other things

I knitted up about 100 yards of yarn on Best Friend's sweater before I realized that gauge was wrong.

I'm making another Emerald. Since I made one for Sister last year, I went ahead and cast on with the same yarn (Lamb's Pride Bulky) and the same size needle (US10). The sweater's knitted in the round from the bottom up and starts with 20 rows of ribbing. Partway through the ribbing I realized that I cast on 114 sts and not 118 but I'd make up for it when I knit on the shawl collar.

It wasn't until I knit about an inch of stockingnette that I checked the gauge and realized that it 4 stitches to the inch instead of 3 stitches. That's a big difference when we're talking 114 (or 118) stitches around.

I did a swatch on US size 13 and got 2.5 stitches to the inch, plus it was rather open so wouldn't be quite as warm as intended. The mohair content didn't bloom enough to make it a solid fabric.

It looks like I'll have to use size 11s but both of my size 11 needles are in use, in a commissioned baby blanket and a take-along shawl. I could either buy another needle, or finish one of those projects. I'm opting to finish the baby blanket.

So sorry Best Friend! Your sweater has been preempted by a baby blanket, again.

In other news, I lost my handknit beret, which I think of as my Obama beret, since I made it with the trip to the inauguration in mind. I think I left it at the state capitol when I went yesterday for a By the People lobby day on immigrant rights.

I really liked the yarn. It was Sheep Shop 2 in the G43 colorway (lovely name, eh?). It's like Manos del Uruguay and costs about the same, but softer and with less yardage. I bought the yarn from Lakeside Fibers in Madison, Wis, using a gift certificate given to me by Mother-in-law.

Last night I pulled out a skein of purple Manos with the idea of cranking out another hat but worked on the baby blanket instead. The receipient is waiting for it and I do have other hats. Plus, it's easier to do the blanket while reading the Twilight series.

Yes, I've been bitten by the Twilight bug. They're such fast and fun reads. I'm in Team Jacob and love that part of Book 4 is written from his point of view instead of Bella's. The sociologist in me is really interested in finding out how his culture(s) work. Plus he's got a better sense of humor and more light-hearted than Edward. Even the titles of his chapters are funny.

And lastly, Husband and I traded in our cellphones and computer for iPhones. I love it. I have been posting pretty easily onto Facebook from the iPhone but for some reason can't blog from it.

Hothlanta 2011

So, I've quit my job and set up meetings with various people about setting up my own shop as a consultant, or finding another job, or things to do with the adoption, or just catching up with friends.

Then along comes the great storm of 2011 and puts everything on hold.

Atlanta got some snow. About 4 inches worth. Not much, right?

However, it is a rare event in the US South and there aren't enough snow plows, salt and sand trucks, etc to deal with it. Plus, the snow melts a bit when the sun is out and the temp rises, then refreezes at night. So the top layer of all the snow is actually ice. Makes for very slow going. The local news is full of warnings about "Don't go out unless you really have to!" Personally I've seen cars and trucks spin out and one pedestrian slip and fall on the ice. And I got stuck for a bit in it myself.

So schools have been closed all this week, along with many businesses. All my meetings have been postponed until next week at the earliest. As of yesterday, day 4 of the snowmaggedon, this graphic's been going around

I'm a home body, so I'm not suffering. I have many, many distractions:

1. Tai Chi and Yoga

2. Cooking, especially from One Big Table: 600 recipes from the nation's best home cooks, farmers, fishermen, pit-masters, and chefs

3. DVDs galore. I thought I'd rewatch Buffy the Vampire Slayer but have been rewatching Dollhouse Season 2.

4. Netflix Watch Instantly. I saw a tweet about this article http://beyondvictoriana.com/2011/01/09/56-ten-reasons-why-steampunks-and-everyone-else-should-watch-avatar-the-last-airbender/ and was motivated to figure out how to make Watch Instantly work.

5. Nook e-reader and knitting -- 2 things that were made for each other. I borrowed "And Another Thing..." book 6 in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series. It's been a long, long time since I read the other books, but fortunately, they provide a "previously on..." section to catch you up. Especially since it's been years since the last book came out and the author died. This one is written by Eoin Colfer. And I'm still plugging away at Husband's stockingnette blanket. Talk about mindless knitting.

Speaking of Husband and blanket; so it's been cold and I had a lap quilt (made for me by Best Friend) across my legs. Husband wanted a blanket too and asked "is it the only blanket we have?" Pfft! I have made plenty of blankets! So I gave him the quilt and I'm using this blanket.

6. Going out anyway. Even I have a limit to how much nesting at home I can do.

Managing projects

Not a great picture, but these are the knitting projects I'm focusing on now.

Three of them are gifts and are getting varying degrees of attention. So I decided to rotate them.  Everyday, I will work on one and then the next, work on another, and then the next day another, etc.  Some days I get more knitting in than others, so this should ensure that they all get some progress.  Especially the sloggy projects. 

I started this weekend and this is how it's shaking out so far.

Sat: started the Baby Blanket for Husband's secretary, who's due in February.  (Lower right)
Yarn:  Various worsted weight cotton and superwash wool yarns, held double.
Needle:  US 10 (6mm)
Construction:  Center out, stockingnette and garter stitches.

Sun:  Husband's Blanket (lower left)
Yarn: various worsted weight wool (not superwash, I don't know what I was thinking), black and pastel colors, held double.
Needle: US 10 (6mm)
Construction:  Using the Chinese Coin quilt pattern, but in stockingnette stitch

Mon: Sister and Brother-in-Law's Blanket (upper left)
Yarn: Various worsted weight superwash wool yarns in shades of blue and natural, held double.
Needle: US 10 (6mm)
Construction:  Cast on 200 stitches, random stockingnette stripes

Tue:  Sweater for me (upper right)
Yarn: Rowan Felted Tweed, DK weight
Needle: US 6 (4mm)
Construction:  Top down, funnel neck, raglan sleeves, stockingnette stitch.

Wed: back to the Baby Blanket
Thur: Husband's Blanket

and so on.

I just started this on Saturday, so we'll see how long I manage this. 

One snafu already: what will be my portable knitting?  So far, the DK weight sweater is still at a size and stage that is portable, and I'm going to a reading tonight, a lunch with a friend tomorrow, and an HOA meeting Wed night.  So I'll probably take the sweater for those days, and thus wrecking my knitting schedule already.

Option: Take the sweater out of the rotation, use it only as portable knitting.  Then add it to the rotation when it gets too big to be portable.

Vacation starts today

Today, Sister, Sister's Fiance, and Brother Two come into town this afternoon. I'm taking the morning off and hopefully the afternoon too, but may have to go into the office to take care of some things.

I've spent the morning surfing the web, reading up on the links in my sidebar, and knitting on the Sunrise Circle Jacket. Right now, I am one row away from turning the hem for the right front. Then I knit the hem and all the knitting with be done.

Usually I will block the pieces before sewing them together, just to flatten out the rolled edges.

However, by blocking surface, AKA guest bed, will be in use. Maybe I'll put it away for now and work only on relatively mindless knitting. While the SCJ is all stockingnette, you do have to pay attention to the knitting because of number of stitches between Make 1s and the number of Make 1s varies on each row.

So, what to make? Options:

• Modern Quilt Wrap with the colors here. Maybe the triangular shawl option I mentioned on that post. However, now that it's only one month till the California trip, it most likely won't be done in time for that.
• Another scarf, a little triangular center-out fichu, from a skein of Soxie in the Blueberry colorway. I have a multidirectional Noro scarf going, but the yarn is very rough. I imagine it would soften with washing, but it's tough going.

I could also continue working on the Furisode Log Cabin blanket

Or add on a green border to the crochet blanket at top I started years ago. It's sock yarn from Mountain Colors, can't remember what color way. The burgundy yarn in Essentials sock yarn from Knit Picks. I also have ball of Essential in forest green.

As you can see, it's only the size of a sofa throw cushion. I have a long way to go yet to be a blanket, even a baby blanket, of decent size. Maybe Sister or Brother will want it as a cushion cover and I can quickly crochet a back to it.

ETA: Sister wants the crochet cushion cover. And I started a superwash wool scarf for Brother Two.

Honorine and Babette

I've finished crocheting the squares for the orange and ivory baby blanket. There are 36 and I just barely had enough of the orange to finish. I frogged the swatches I had to get enough yarn.

Now all that remains is sewing them up and adding a border. And waiting for the baby. However, the baby girl (not mine) isn't born yet, so the blanket is nameless. And I just found out someone else had a baby boy, so of course I'm thinking, another baby blanket to make!

I've cast on for Honorine, using KnitPicks CotLin in Moroccan Red. When I got the box last week, the red made me swoon. Okay, not literally, but I was very happy with it. I swatched with size 6 US and size 5 US and size 6 gave me gauge (22 sts = 4 inches). However, after washing and blocking, the yarn expanded and the size 6 US swatch now turns out to be 20.5 sts to 4 inches.

What to do? Should I go with the pre-washed gauge and cast on the number of stitches for my bust size, or go with the after washing gauge and cast on the number for the smaller bust size and rely on washing to make it grow to my size?

I've also decided to knit it in the round and omit the lace insert for modesty. Actually, I don't want to have to wear a camisole underneath. It's just too warm in Atlanta most of the time to need it. This involved more math, as the lace insert uses a different yarn, with a different gauge which I had to convert to my washed CotLin gauge. In the end, I chose to go with the smallest size and cast on 180 stitches. Here's hoping this works!

Crocheting the orange and ivory really got me into the crochet groove. I've been eyeing Babette by Kathy Merrick from Interweave Crochet 2006 and there are lots of great pics on Flickr. I also have Glorious Patchwork by Kaffe Fassett (love his stuff!). The quilt on the cover was the inspiration for Babette.

But most of my yarn is not machine washable and there's no way I'm going to hand wash an afghan. Really now, people.

However, in flipping through Glorious Patchwork, I found a few quilts that I could convert into knitting or crocheting. After the orange and ivory blanket is done, I'll do some swatching and we'll see what comes of it.

However, it'll have to go the end of the line behind Husband's afghan, Honorine, Brother-in-law's vest -- for winter holiday or his January birthday, the Sandy cardigan from Big Girl Knits for Ma -- needs to be done by Chinese New Year next year, and fixing Sister's Bi-colored Cables sweater. I probably just need to reknit the sleeves. And the collar.

But for now, I will just enjoy going round and round on Honorine, my portable, mindless knitting.

About Us

Went to California for Xmas instead of Wisconsin to see the in-laws.  Started in San Francisco for a few days and drove down the Pacific Coast Highway to Los Angeles, with a stop in Cambria half way on Christmas Eve.  Lovely trip with lots of knitting time.  I took my topdown raglan sweater to work on.  I started with a pattern, then modified it to add stitches in the bust but went too far and now it's all wonky. I modified the neckline too.

So, I have downloaded the Raglanify app onto my iPhone, entered my gauge from the non-wonky part of the sweater and will cast on sometime in the new year.

Currently my knitting rotation is:
Sister and Brother-in-Law's blanket.
Husband's blanket.
Baby Sweater for Husband's secretary (instead of the blanket).
My sweater or new baby blanket.  Not sure yet but that will be the project for Jan 1, 2012

Also my project for the new year is getting the adoption going.  We met with the consulting agency last week and they gave us feedback on the profile booklet we're putting together for birthmothers.

We've nearly finished the homestudy part where a social worker assesses our suitability as prospective parents, in an "objective" way.  This included criminal background checks, assessing our financial situation, visiting our home, getting letters of recommendation, and medical exam.  I understand wanting some minimum level of suitability, and am sure we meet or exceed all of them, but wonder how much leeway would be given to a poor couple, or a couple with health problems.

The profile booklet is much more subjective.  This is where we introduce ourselves to the birthmothers, describe where we live, what we do, how we live, our families and friends.  We spend the vacation taking pictures of ourselves as a happy couple, being careful to crop out any beer or wine glasses, and not cutting up like we usually do.

Putting this profile booklet is like posting on this blog or on Facebook.  Which sides of ourselves do we show?  We want to present ourselves as competent people, a happy couple, and fun-loving but not outrageous.

These booklets are given to the birthmoms and from these 15 to 20 pages of words and pictures, she decides whether or not we are the people she wants raising her child.

No pressure.

Leverage

Ugh. Today started out okay, then there was very disappointing news today at noon. Went to the office for an event for one of our programs. Checked the mail. Found out that one of the grant proposals we submitted was not accepted. I now have a $200,000 hole in the budget to fill. Our entire operating budget is $570,000.

About one third of our expected income is not happening. Damn.

I'm also not very happy with the way I broke the news to the staff member who's most affected by this not-happening grant. Gah.

That grant would have paid for all of her salary, and percentages of other staffers' salaries, including my own. Argh.

So I came home and knit and watched an episode and a half of Leverage season one. I am quite enjoying it. I liked Ocean's Eleven and Thirteen (didn't see O12, heard it wasn't all that good) and Leverage is like that.

I say only 1.5 episodes because Husband came home and we went to the gym. I was reading "Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" but had to put it down when I got to the point where they were trying to find an investor to keep their business from going under. A little too close to what I'm dealing with at work.

Hence, again, the escapism of shows like Buffy, Dollhouse, and Leverage. Leverage I'm getting through Netflix, and I've requested Angel from the public library. It's ready for pickup.

As loathe as I am to leave the house on Sundays (I love having a day where I don't leave the house at. all.), I may run to the library tomorrow to get Angel. And run over to Knitch to pick out a button for the sweater I finished knitting today!

I still have to wash, block, and weave in ends. And sew on the button and the label that says Hand knit by me. But I'm counting it as done.

Still have 3 works in progress on the needles, but itching to start a new blanket project. WIP run down:

1. mohair shawl on size 11 needles. It's an on again off again project. Started years ago, pulled it out of hibernation just this summer.

2. portable scarf project on size 8 needles.

3. Sunrise Circle Jacket on size 7 needles. I just started it a week ago.

I have 5 skeins of chunky Noro Furisode yarn in colorway 2 that I want to make into a garter stitch blanket. A soothing mindless knit with gorgeous yarn. Perfect for TV watching.

And movie watching. Tomorrow is Can't Stop the Serenity, the fundraiser for Equality Now that shows Serenity on the big screen. A garter stitch blanket is perfect for knitting in the dark.

Okay. Gotta go. I have a blanket to cast on for.

WIPs

This weekend I was inspired to photograph my current projects:


Sister's Bicolor Cables cardigan, from Interweave Knits, in Cascade 220, not the recommended yarn.
The body is knit from the bottom up, in one piece up to the underarm. Then I finished the back.












Here are the sleeves. You can see that they are almost done, and then I decide to count the stitches and find that one has 10 more stitches on the needle than the other. I knit them both at the same time, from opposite ends of the same ball of yarn, precisely to make sure they match. And yet they don't. Another weekend of letting them sit.

This baby blanket is almost done, but here's a picture anyway. The yarn is Cascade Sierra in navy, light blue, pink, and white. The yarn in held double and that's how I got the tweedy look. Size J crochet hook. General pattern is 2 rows of double crochet of the solid colors and 4 rows of the mixed colors. There will be 2 rows of white on the sides to finish.

Husband's afghan: Cascade 220 in black and medium blue, held double, size 10 US needle. There will be alternating strips of black and blue, with a black border. Very similar to the baby blanket pattern, no? Very easy to make? Yes.

Here's a close up of each strip, knit in basket weave stitch. Each block of the basket weave is 5 stitches wide and 6 rows tall.

Last WIP, another baby blanket. Center is Mountain Colors Barefoot in Mystic Lake colorway, double crocheted. Don't remember what hook I used, but may be size F. It was started last year to be a scarf but now it will be a blanket. The other yarn shows is Knit Picks Essential Solid in burgundy, navy, and dark green. Currently log cabining one inch of the burgundy in garter stitch. When that's done, I'll switch back to double crochet. Much faster that way.

It couldn't last

Project monogamy is just not for me. I've been working on a baby blanket that was commissioned by one of Husband's clients. She offered to pay but of course I turned that down. How would I price it? She's a gatekeeper of sorts and has the ability to keep referring cases to Husband. So it'll be a freebie (as always).

The baby blanket is all cotton and knit on size 11 US needles. It's flying by and great mindless knitting, especially when speed reading through the Twilight series of books. Now the books are done and the baby blanket is no longer enough. Plus it's too big to keep carrying around in my purse.

So last night I started a beret, using a purple varigated Manos del Uruguay yarn. This will be my portable project and will replace the beret I lost last week.

In condo news, we're a chapter 34 of the on-going saga. After some last minute revelations about a huge lien on the condo, it seems we may finally be able to close next week, about 12 weeks later than the original closing date. I'll believe it when I get the keys in my hands.

Sean Scully blanket update

I am loving the garter stitch, Malabrigo fest. The yarn is so soft! I'm really enjoying the green section. It's one strand of Saphire Green (the light green) and one of Verdes (the dark and light green varigated). Loving the marled look that results. This is what it looks like now, with the pieces roughly placed where they will be in the end.

These and the one up top are the Sean Scully pictures that inspired this blanket. Sorry about the blurry pics, but you get the idea.

I knitted the orange/yellow/white and purple/grey pieces separately. Then threaded onto a cable needle the orange/yellow/white and cable-cast on more in blue (one strand Malabrigo Buscando Azul and one some blue Cascade 220 left over from Husband's blanket). Then I knit back in the green. When the vertical green sections separated by thin blue stripes are done, I'll sew on the purple/grey piece. Not sure if I'll try to match up the stripes or not. I'm pretty much winging it.

More free yarn

This is a big box of yarn gifted to me by a friend. It is her mother's yarn who passed away 5 years ago.

Last year she gave me some of her mother's yarn and I made an afghan for her out of some of it. I posted about it here.

The bottom half is superwash wool, worsted weight in burgundy, navy, black, light blue. I love that the labels call them Super Wool. :) The next layers are cotton in worsted weight, in tans. There are balls of white cotton as well.

The top layers are 2 bags of yarn, to be made into blankets for her children. My friend's mother had planned to make sweaters for the then-small grandchildren. So my friend has asked me to make them into blankets instead. I've put them in those space saver vacuum bags, each labeled with the name of the relevant child.

The son, currently 11 years old I think, has sage green, mustard yellow, hot pink, and teal yarn in worsted weight cotton. These yarns were bought in the 1980s. I'm thinking something like Kiki Mariko from Mason-Dixon Knitting. Or something stripey like I thought about in this post about my Sean Scully blanket. or the post called Quilt Inspiration about knitting something based on Kaffe Fassett. My friend had given me lots of black yarn previously too so I'll mix in a lot of black to unify it all. That's the idea anyway.

The daughter is now 4 years old and her yarn is fingering weight cotton in lavender and white, and there's alot of it. With only 2 colors, I'm thinking something lacy. I'll have to troll Ravelry to find something appropriate based on yardage. Once I go back and calculate how much yardage there is.

My friend said there's no timeline on getting those blankets done, so that's good. She also offered to pay me for making them. My first thought it "no, all that other yarn is payment enough."

It's also hard to think how much to charge. I could track all the time I spend knitting the blankets and then multiply by some amount of money per hour. Using $10 an hour as a number plucked out of the air, it's possible that each blanket could cost hundreds of hours if not more. Is that something I want to charge a friend? Maybe I'll not charge anything, but at least let her know how many hours I spent per blanket. I'll figure it out when the time comes. I have to knit them first.

What's also fun is that my friend is Bosnian and so some of the yarn labels are in Bosnian so I'm not sure what their content is. I'm treating those as hand wash yarn.

Soothing Garter Stitch

Work is very stressful and dealing with contractors for the new-to-us condo is stressful but in a positive way. I feel like I can't deal with anything more complicated than garter stitch and it's Malabrigo to the rescue!

I have a feeling that the majority of the next few months of posts will be about knitting and the new condo, aspects of my life that are about moving forward, that are fun and exciting for me. There are so many other things that are stressing me out that I don't want to spend the time blogging about unhappy things when that time and effort could be spend doing things that make me happy.

So, here's a pic of the Sean Scully Malabrigo afghan (scroll down) to date. Instead of black and white, I'm using orange and yellow, specifically, Tigerlily and Pollen, with some KnitPicks Merino Bare. And I'm adding an off-set strip of purple and grey, specifically Purple Mystery and Pearl, to the bottom. And the rest will be big green and little blue vertical stripes. Perhaps I should sketch it out, but instead, here's picture showing roughly where the elements will be:

Close-ups of the the pieces that are done or mostly done:

Basically, I'm holding 2 strands together and knitting on size 10.5 US needles. Malabrigo is kettle-dyed and so some skeins will be more solid, and others show more variation in color intensity. You can really see that in the purple above. I ran out of the darker, more solid purple, so went to Knitch to find something comparable. (Knitch doesn't sell Malabrigo worsted, but does sell the silk/merino DK weight. The Needle Nook does sell Malabrigo worsted, but was out of the purple.) I picked up 2 skeins of Manos del Uruguay in Aster, a purple that matched very well.

Knitch has a huge selection of Noro yarns and as much as I've seen on other blogs about Noro, I've never worked with it. I've heard they're scratchy. Considering that I'm surrounding myself with the ultrasoft Malabrigo, I wasn't interested in working with anything scratchy.

An aside, on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me last week, Mo Rocha made a crack about handmade sweaters always being itchy and this week, he made an apology because the knitting community contacted them to protest (the words knitting community made the audience laugh. I swear, we get no respect). They also mentioned Ravelry.

However, I found some Noro with high cotton content and walked away with not one, but two skeins of Noro: Taiyo in color 2 (grey, green, and peach) and Furisode in color 1 (grey, orange and lime green):

Clearly, I have cast on for another project -- a center top-down triangular shawl, garter stitch, on size 9 needles. I'm telling you, I can't deal with anything more complicated than that.

The peach from the Taiyo will echo the orange from the Furisode, and the lime green in the Furisode will echo the bright green in the Taiyo. That's serendipity because I sure didn't plan that when I bought the yarn.

In other knitting news, I finished the commissioned baby blanket: Basically it's one strand of blue and one of white Cotton Tots and one strand of navy blue Cotton Classic, using size 11 needles, cast on about 100 stitches and knit stockingnette and reverse stockingnette to make a square with in a square effect. Finish with three strands of Simfonia navy blue yarn held together and single crochet the border with a size N needle until bored. Took me about a month.

I call it the commissioned blanket because it's for a client of Husband's. Today, Husband was at the office working on a case for that client and I was at the condo with the client's husband who we will most likely hire to lay down our bamboo floor. I gave them the baby blanket today for their new grandson.

Mondrian baby blanket

I love making baby blankets. They're small and there's so much room for creativity. It's 2 dimensions (usually) that can hold so much color, pattern, and line. I take a lot of my inspiration from quilts and abstract paintings.

2 people in Husband's office are expecting babies, so I have 2 blankets to make. One I've already started, inspired by African patterns. I'll post pictures soon.

The other one will be a Mondrian blanket.

It'll be a great fit. The father to be is second generation Romanian and the mother's background I don't know. But they're both American. The Romanian flag is equal stripes blue, yellow, and red. The primary colors. The American flag is red, white, and blue.

In thinking about what to do, I thought of Mondrian (http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/mondrian_piet.html). His works are based on the grid (hello log cabin knitting!) and use black, white, red, yellow, blue. Perfect!

Today in Google Imaging Mondrian pictures, I came across a site where you can make your own Mondrian-esque pictures. Here's the link: http://www.stephen.com/mondrimat/

This will be fun. In that spirit, I've changed the template to something Mondrian-y.

I still want to make a Sean Scully blanket, but don't know what the parents-to-be's taste in art are. But Mondrian has crossed into pop culture and so I'll be able to scratch that abstract art itch.

Blanket or sweater?

This is all my bulky weight wool yarn.  It's a mix of Manos del Uraguay, Lamb's Pride Bulky, Lion Brand, and 2 balls of Misty Alpaca.

I want to make a sweater, but I don't think I have enough of any one color for it.

Because the wool's not the softest stuff (oh Malabrigo, how you've spoiled me), I may make a Mitered Crosses blanket out of it. Maybe use the reds as the backgrounds for the crosses?  Or I should mix it all up and make the background some neutral color instead.  I'll have to play around with it.

However, I need to finish Husband's bulky weight wool blanket first.  I am on the last of the 9 colored strips, then there's the all black strips that join the colored strips....

But the end is in sight!

Sibling Reunion 2011 and Buffy rewatch

This month, Brother One came to the US from Taiwan for a visit. As a legal permanent resident but not a citizen of Taiwan, he is required to leave Taiwan once a year. As a citizen of the US, he decided to come to the US. He's stateside about 3 weeks and staying with me and friends in Atlanta for about 2 weeks of that time.

It was also Brother Two's birthday this Monday, so we all met up at Sister's place in the DC area. Brother One and I drove from Atlanta to Sister's. Brother Two took the bus from NYC to DC and Sister picked him up.

Sister lives in a one bedroom 800 sq ft condo with her husband. It's a good thing we were only there 2 full days.

Much of that time was spent eating (Korean BBQ, Papa John's pizza, Popeye's fried chicken, Maryland blue crab -- things Brother One missed about the US) and playing mahjongg while eating snack foods and drinking beer. It was great.

Sister's husband was working.

On the drive up, I borrowed Ananci Boys by Neil Gaiman on CDs to listen to in the car. I had also loaded American Gods by Gaiman onto my iPhone, but that didn't work so well.

When we got back to Atlanta, Brother One and I unwound by beginning the Buffy the Vampire Slayer rewatch, by watching the first 2 episodes of Season One: Welcome to the Hellmouth and The Harvest.

Topics of conversation during our reunion:
sexism, gender discrimination, the Supreme Court decision striking down the sex-discrimination case against Walmart, what our parents are doing, racism, comic books, air guitar (Brother Two has been competing), and of course, eating.

Sister and Brother-in-law's first anniversary is coming up so I offered to knit them a blanket. I took a Knitpicks catalog to get their input about colors. They (really, Sister) choose medium blue, dark red, and cream. The pattern and size I will figure out. I will start with using the superwash worsted weight that I have set aside for the Babette Blanket and then fill in from there.

We also went to Uniquities yarn shop in Tysons Corner. I got Brother Two a skein of superwash worsted weight yarn from Lorna's Laces in blue, green, black to make him a scarf, and one skein each of superwash worsted weight yarn in light grey and tealish blue. Not sure what I'll do with it yet, but they were so pretty together.

Since we were driving, I packed a lot of yarn. Half my luggage was yarn: for Husband's City Quilt blanket, a brimmed sunhat for me, and my portable-ish shawl.

All in all it was a great reunion.

Twitterific!

Wow. It's been a month since I've posted on the blog. However, I've been tweeting a lot more. So.

I'm on the last book of the series that began with Mortal Engines by Philip Reeve. The original protagonists, Tom and Hester, were teens in the first books and in books 3 and 4, they've had a daughter, Wren, who's now a teen, having adventures with other teens and adults. So still teen friendly.

The war between the Municipal Darwinists (who believe that it's natural evolution that entire cities are mounted on gigantic wheels and roam around trading with or eating other cities, towns, suburbs, etc.) and Anti=Tractionists (who believe that cities should be static and stay put) continues.

I've been cranking away on blankets as I read. A garter stitch Baby Moderne-esque Log Cabin for a friend. Husband's City Lights blanket. A blanket for Sister and her Husband.

Finished the baby blanket. Going to look for a new project soon. Something portable, something 1 skein-ish. Maybe simple lace. I'd like to do a chunky lace on size 11s or something. But that's hardly portable. Perhaps I should cruise Ravelry a bit...

Husband's blanket update

Making good progress on Husband's afghan. The strips of blue and black Cascade 220 has been sewn together and now I just have to knit the top and bottom stripes. Progress picture:

Basic recipe:

Hold yarn double, cast on 20 stitches onto size 10US needles.

First six rows: Knit 5, Purl 5, Knit 5, Purl 5.

Next six rows: Purl 5, Knit 5, Purl 5, Knit 5.

Repeat, alternating rows so you get a checkerboard texture.

Continue until yarn runs out.

Make several strips. Sew them together so that the checkerboard is consistent throughout.

What I have left to do -- pick up stitches along the top in blue and continue the checkerboard texture so that there will be a frame of blue stripes around the black, blue, black, blue, black strips. Repeat with the bottom edge.

I did colors as strips to be knit together, so that direction of the checkerboard texture is the same throughout. Also, strips are more portable than hauling around an ever growing blanket.

The blanket is almost 5 feet wide and I don't have a size 10US needle long enough. So I finally broke down and ordered a set of the Knit Picks Options set of needles and ordered a 60 inch cable.

In the mean time, what will I do? I'm still thinking about my Rectangle of Malabrigo using the Malabrigo I have:

The colors are:

2 skeins Purple Mystery (one wound into a ball, one still in the hank) Notice how much darker one is than the other.

1 skein Buscando Azul, split into three balls -- Love. This. Color.

1 skein Oceanos still in the hank.

1 skein Saphire Green (their spelling). It's left over from a house coat sweater I made for myself last year. It's true, Malabrigo pills like crazy. But I love it anyway. So soft and cozy.

1 skein Pollen.

1 skein Tiger Lily.

What to do with all this Malabrigo goodness? I'm thinking of a log cabin afghan with green central squares. But I have more blue and purple than yellow and orange. Either I have to buy more yarn (oh the hardship) or leave off one skein of purple and blue.

I need to think about this.

Oh, by the way, the yarn I used for Husband's afghan is not machine washable. Which means I'll be washing this by hand. How could I have forgotten this detail?

For Brother Two's afghan, I did not make the same mistake. I made him pick only from the superwash (wool yarn chemically treated to withstand machine washing and drying without shrinking and felting) worsted weight yarn from the Knit Picks catalog. That yarn and Mason-Dixon Knitting should be here any day now.