Joining Kat’s Unraveled Wednesdays:

I’ll be finishing both these books in the next couple of days. In A Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue, I’ve got 100 pages left, which means the stupid thing they’re about to do is likely the climax moment, so I will need to finish it all in one chunk of time. In The Book Jumpers, the monster is getting closer to being revealed, which means it’s become more stressful to read that, as well. After this, I’m reading a stress-free book about kittens. Or maybe just petting my kittens.

On Sunday night, I wrapped up the knitting on my fourth finished object of the year. This is the Points of Light Baby Blanket, by Jean Clement (it’s just a smidge bigger than my mom’s sweater drying rack, which is why it looks a little weird in this picture):

I bought the cotton-acrylic blend yarn, Plymouth Yarn’s Jeannee, ages ago, at a yarn shop that no longer exists in Hyattsville one afternoon with Sarah. I bought it as an option for a gift for a baby-to-be who is now 8, but almost immediately ran into trouble with the pattern. I put it down, knit something else, and didn’t give it another thought until my friend Amani informed me she was pregnant last winter. Then I dug it out, picked up where I’d left off, and knit a couple repeats on it.

Something was wrong. My tension had changed over the years. But maybe it was only obvious to me. Enter Rudi, who knows enough to be useful in these situations. Could he see where things went awry. When he pointed to the eight-year gap, I knew it was necessary to rip.

The project re-commenced in May. I used nearly all of both skeins of the turquoise yarn (33), a good chunk (somewhere between half and two-thirds) of the second ball of the mint (the edging color) (28), and only a few dozen yards of the second balls of the yellow (17), spring green (16), and powder blue (21).

Some additional thoughts, were I to knit this again:

1. I made this using the pattern as it was originally written, but would probably have caught on faster to the pattern if I’d looked at the updated version before I began. As it was, I needed to draw myself a chart and color it in to help it stick.
2. I carried the yarn up the side and would do it again. By and large, I was happy with how that turned out, and would know for next time that the side border and edging will help even out any inconsistencies in the tension that results from doing so. Loosening those first few stitches as much as I did every other row definitely slowed me down.
3. The border is written for log cabin style, so each one is done separately. This resulted in way more ends than I would have believed possible for the project (and hours of weaving them in). Were I to make it again, I’d at least look into what’s involved with just knitting the border in the round. I assume the concern is having square corners… But I’d be okay with some rounding if it reduced the ends by 3/4.
4. The single reverse crochet stitch edging is nice, but I’m not a crochet person, so it took a ton of time while I tried to figure out how to do a yarn over on a crochet hook and watched various videos of how to execute the stitch properly. I’m not sure the end result is so much more spectacular than a straight single crochet stitch edging would’ve been that it made it worth that effort and the hours of work that ensued, although, again, maybe the corner thing comes into play.

Overall, I’m pleased with the blanket, as were Amani and Marcus when I presented it to them on Monday. I hope Ayinde, who’s now a month old, sleeps well beneath it.