Blankets and Patchwork

I’ve been quite industrious since the last blog entry and have completed the first of the baby blankets using up some wool which I’ve had a while.  When I saw the wool on Doncaster Market I thought it looked quite pretty but when I started to knit a tension square it became apparent the colours didn’t blend very well.   The white turning to grey just looked dirty next to the yellow and the orange tint went into a washed out pink colour so this wool clearly wouldn’t be for anything I’d wear.  I came across the group who knit blankets for premature babies and distribute them to hospitals in a prima magazine and decided I would happily knit up the yukky wool for them.  Apparently, they are short of 24x24 inch blankets and as I had, in a rush of enthusiasm, bought 6 balls of the ghastly stuff there’s plenty for the blankets.  As I had some wool with contrasting colours I decided to use that in a stripe and it worked surprisingly well but I still wouldn’t wear it!

One of the suggested stitches for the blankets was moss stitch, not a stitch I’ve used very much so I thought I’d give it a try.  It takes a little longer to knit than stocking stitch but produces quite a sturdy fabric and a tweedy effect with the random wools I was using.  It is also quite a wide stitch, I only needed 109 stitches for the 24 inch width.

The patchwork has also been coming along and the top of the cover is now finished.

I realised I was running low on dark materials and so enjoyed a shopping trip to Doncaster to top up my supplies.  I was particularly pleased with one of the fabrics from Knit and Stitch.

While I was taking the photos I noticed the girls in their usual position, fast asleep on Kev’s chair.