The Heathen Housewife

Now I know for sure that the mailman is playing mind games with me. Today there were no packages at my door. No, instead there was an orange slip of paper telling me to come get them at the local post office after 4 p.m. Okay, maybe he was just trying to protect my packages from the much-needed rain we got all day today, but it meant that I had to wait till 4 and then drag both girls to the post office to collect a large bin of parcels. A car ride at 4 p.m. means one thing to my non-napping toddler. Wanna guess? She falls asleep. So we drive less than a mile and I have to wake her up so she can walk through the rain with me, stand in line, collect a bin, get back in the car.

Oh my, listen to me whine. I make it sound like my life is so freakin’ hard. It wasn’t that bad. We got to go to the library right afterwards, and I came home with another giant bin full of presents to open. Who am I kidding? I have a great life and it is all totally worth it. I am loving this project and only wish I had more time to work on the blanket itself. Only three squares today. For shame. But we’ll get to that later. First, let’s open some packages!!!1!one! I sure hope you all are detecting the irony in the post title.

I hate to play favorites, because every package I’ve received so far is amazing and generous and unique and special in its own way like a snowflake or a child or something really touching like that. But I’m going to start with my favorite package of the day because there are so many things about it that make it my favorite. First, it’s the first international package I’ve received. Well, there’s another international one in today’s batch, but I came across this one first. Next, look at the stamps. You need a closer look, so scroll on down to the next picture.

Canada has some awesome stamps. Joe and I have talked on occasion about whether we should up and move to Canada – the last time the topic came up seriously was when the U.S. went to war on Iraq. Mostly it is out of sheer shame to be Americans. But now – now I want to go live in a country that has yarn on its stamps!

And the cartoon extreme sports are pretty cute too.

Okay, then we have the actual contents of the package. There was a lot of nice yarn all exactly what I asked for – from a nice lady named Helga in Ontario who wrote me a very sweet note. To top it all off, Helga (who I’m sure doesn’t know that I’ve been sadly off chocolate since just after Sophie was born) included a generous handful of these:

High-quality dark chocolate in tiny little bars that are just small enough that I can probably get away with eating one a day without turning Sophie into a demon baby. I’m sure willing to give it a try. Helga, you made my day. Along with the nine other people who sent me packages I got to open today.

Next up we have PJ from St. Charles, MO. PJ – do you shop at Meyer’s House ever? There is a very nice woman named Carol who works at Meyer’s House. She gave me a hug one time when I really needed one. But that’s another story. PJ made two contributions to my sport-weight wool collection, one to the wool/nylon, and one to the cotton/wool/nylon collection. All are very nice.

Leah from Seattle sent a nice package. I’m in love with the blue-speckled skein half-buried right in the middle of the pile that you can’t see very well – I almost want to know exactly what it is so I can go buy more. The pink stuff is pretty cool, too. There’s even a ball of koigu there. Oh, and Leah, you have beautiful children.

Karen lives just down the road from me in South Haven, MN. After looking at her blog, I want to go stalk her. She makes all kinds of awesome stuff and sells it at the farmer’s market. Karen, e-mail me and tell me which farmer’s market you’re at. I want to come find you and buy jars of all your canned goods and that bread looks yummy too! Most of Karen’s yarns are Opal – she has good taste.

Did I mention that I got a visit from the UPS guy today? Joan from Pennsylvania sent me this lovely stuff – a bunch of exactly-what-I-asked for, and a nice little egg of koigu.

Here’s today’s second international package. Are you ready for this?! From Australia. You read me right. I’m holding a package of yarn scraps from the other side of the planet, people. Behold the power of the Internet. It’s a little scary, really. Just over a week ago I asked the internet to help me with my blankie project, and today I’m looking at a gift from Michelle in Bathurst, New South Wales. I really like the postcard showing a shepherd riding a motorcycle.

Next up is Emily, who had very little to say in her e-mail and included no note in her package of very nice yarns. We may never know more about Emily than her good taste in sock yarn and that she’s from Manitowoc, Wisconsin.

Kathy in Oxnard, California send a box containing more scraps than I had in my original stash, lots of very good stuff. She’s apparently another woman of few words, though.

Katherine from Massechusetts sent a good-sized box of really yummy stuff. “Mostly Opal, Lorna’s Laces, with a little Koigu and some Anne” she says. Katherine, you must knit a LOT of socks. From her web page, Katherine looks to lead an interesting life. She has stories to tell about skunks, cheese making, pretty flowers, and yummy recipes, all on Martha’s Vinyard!

Finally, we have a sweet little box with a sweet little hand-made note thar I love and more of exactly-what-I-asked-for.

That’s the end of our package-opening session today (actually yesterday now as it was very late, Sophie woke up, and I decided to go on to bed and finish this in the morning now.) Here is your cute child picture of the day – Sophie fell asleep in her car seat in the Hail Mary position. I’m not going to be able to have her hang out in it this way much longer since she’s close to sitting up on her own. I was standing right there watching her the whole time – it happened right as we came in the door from being out, so if you’re going to think I’m a completely negligent Mommy, don’t make it because of this particular incident, OK?

Oops – and the blankie wants to say Hi. It’s growing, slowly but surely.

I was all prepared to sadly call this entry Intermission and apologize as I took a night off from opening packages and blogging about it. It took me a couple hours to do last night’s post (I guess I am not the most efficient person in the world), and tonight I have a class at the store so I was afraid there would be too many packages and not enough time to tackle them. It didn’t seem fair to open some and not all of them, plus I’m honestly really tired. I’m used to getting at least 7 hours of sleep a night, and I’ve been averaging about 5 this week. Not enough, and if it were just me to worry about, I would caffeine up and keep the party going, but since I’m nursing, not only is caffeine a bad idea, but I have to get enough rest or I risk mastitis or losing my supply. That would truly be a disaster.

But, fate she turns my way. First, the mail man came a little early. Second, he brought only four packages today. Third, Sophie went down for a late nap, allowing me a bit of time to type before Joe comes home to cover the childcare while I’m gone. And now I’m picking up after coming home from the class – Joe is chowing on the Chipotle burrito I brought for him and watching Sophie, who is still up, so we’ll see how much time I get. To the opening of packages!

Janet in Chitlenango, NY mailed me a package of lovelies. In her e-mail, she apologized for not having enough scraps for me. mmm – I think you did just fine, Janet! There’s a little bit of everything in there, including some nice Koigu-type, some cotton/wool blend, and the nylon-wool blend that can go into this first blanket. Janet also sent a little gift along for Harry cat. See the little mousie with the colorful feathers for a tail in the bottom left corner? Very thoughtful. Poor Julie thought it was for her, but I managed to convince her otherwise.

Here’s Harry playing with the mouse:

Here we stop to note that I did, in fact, have to take over Sophie for a few minutes to nurse her to sleep so that Joe could eat his giant burrito. Onward!

Amy in Esko, Minnesota – way up north – sent a box of very nice yarns, including some Koigu, some Regia, some Rowan 4 ply soft (which I think can get along well with the Koigu-types); a partial ball of Nature Spun in Turquoise; and two partial balls of Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino.

Oops – and now the baby is back up, but Joe has finished eating so I have a few more minutes.

Kathleen from Santa Ynez, California sent a potpourri of fibery goodness. I see Trekking, Fortissima, and Patons, among others.

Katrina from Berkely, CA sent some of the glittery striping stuff, and managed to fit it in a regular size-10 envelope.

A non-postal infusion of yarn occurred this evening at the store…Laura, who lives in these parts stopped by with a little package of wool/nylon and cotton blend sock yarns for me, and we had a nice little chat. She got to see the blanket first-hand too.

Sheesh, and now I’m typing one-handed as I try a second time to nurse Sophie back to sleep. Thank you, thank you to everyone who has sent me yarn so far!

Here is your cute kid pic of the day – that’s Julie pretending to be a firefighter in the cape I made for her at Christmas (yes, even heathen children get Christmas presents around here.)

Finally, we have a picture of the blanket project collection so far. We’ve definitely outgrown all the pretty baskets and fancy receptacles I started out using. You’re going to see some more utilitarian containers as the stash grows bigger, I’m afraid. Lucky for me I bought a bunch of big plastic bins when they were on sale after New Year’s.

You are looking at a giant IKEA bag holding all the yarns that probably will not make it into the current blanket. This includes a basket (my childhood Easter basket – I grew up as a non-heathen) full of koigu-types and a gallon-sized ziploc stuffed to the max with cotton-blends. Next to that on the right there is another gallon-sized ziploc overstuffed with the yarns that have already appeared in the blanket and the biggest non-laundry basket I own precariously piled with all the yarns that qualify for the current blanket but have not yet been used. I wouldn’t say that I’m buried yet, but there’s definitely enough there to make a blanket.

If you still have yarn to send, don’t fret! Go ahead and send it to me. I’ll sort it and see that it gets to a happy home. I really want to plan on making a second blanket out of either all cotton/wool/nylon blends or koigu-types. I would like to collect enough of each of those to make at least one blanket, and give the extras to lucky recipients who can convince me that they’re really going to use it and hopefully blog about it so we can all see where our yarn went. For the other yarns that just don’t qualify for the current blanket project categories, some are in big enough quantities that they can be given away to people who really want them right now (like the purple and pink, which already has several claims out on it, but which I have not fully committed to any recipient yet – I’ll make an announcement tomorrow, I think.) Others may turn into separate collections like sport-weight sock yarns or something like that. I’ve had some other awesome e-mails from people interested in doing charity knitting with some of it, too, so there are no shortage of places that will welcome your yarn, and I’m happy to act as a clearinghouse for now.

Okay, it’s 11:20. Maybe I can get to bed right now and have a chance at close to enough sleep tonight for once. Thanks again for all your comments and support!

I swear the mailman is playing mind games with me. Not really, but he didn’t show up with the regular mail today till 4:00, and then it was just the standard junk. Not even a Netflix DVD. After the all-day anticipation, the glancing out the window, the listening for the clunk of the mailbox lid – no packages, none at all. I kept opening the front door and looking all around in the bushes, then doing the same by the back door. Nothing. Then, half an hour later, I hear something at the back door. I race back there. Be still my heart, my packages had arrived. Boy, did they arrive!

Today was better than Christmas. I can’t tell you how much I enjoyed opening and sorting this yarn, and Julie did too – you’ll have to scroll down to the bottom to see what I’m talking about. I’m having a hard time finding the right words to express my gratitude to everyone who took the time to send me a piece of their stash. So a simple “Thank You” will have to do. Oh, and there are no blankie pictures today. I did get a few squares knit, but we have enough to look at just sorting the yarn. Tomorrow I’ll try to get a picture of the accumulated pile o’yarn so far. It’s pretty impressive!

Ellen from Medford, MA sent a little bit of everything nice in her package. This was one of the first that I opened today, and I (duh) hadn’t yet realized that we could see it all much better if I would take the yarn out of the ziploc bag before picking up the camera. The pink stuff there? That makes me want to cast on for the cotton-blend blanket right now. But I’m going to practice some self-control.

Sarah from New York sent a nice assortment, and a very sweet note. Sarah has two beautiful daughters adopted from Korea, and yes, Sara, I would believe the insensitive comments and questions you get from strangers. I get the same ones all the time. I would love to know what your responses are because I’m still struggling with how to graciously deny information to strangers. If you ever do start that blog on knitting in Korea, send me the link! Oh, and Julie loooved the bubble-wrap. That was worth almost more than the yarn.

Donna in Virginia sent me a nice little collection of leftovers that includes some Lorna’s Laces, some Super Socks Dazzle, which I had never seen before, as well as some other pretty bits as yet unidentified.

Diana in Brooklyn sent a nice package with a nice range of fibers from Jawoll (including the matching reinforcing thread) to what looks like little bits of Koigu. Diana, I looked at your blog, and I have total bag envy over that diaper bag bag you just made. I love the fabric you used for the lining. Very cool. If you’re reading this, can you tell me what kind of yarn are the pink ones? They’re very pretty, but I’d like to know the fiber content before I sort them into their final piles.

Mary Beth from Arlington, VA sent me two lovely chunks with a little note that simply said “Enjoy!” I will, Mary Beth – I especially love the rainbow-colored one. I’ve always loved the yarns with differently colored plies that shift colors. Yum!

Joan from Glen Ellyn, IL sent some very nice Cherry Tree Hill, some Regia, and a big skein of what was her first attempt at dying yarn, which she was less than thrilled with. The colors are a little muddy in that one, but it’s 100% Merino Wool and I bet it would felt. I can’t put this one in the blanket, and I’m not sure if I would use it myself any time soon. If someone would like to try overdying this or has another useful use for it, I’d be happy to send it along. Otherwise, I will hang onto it and make sure it gets to someone who will appreciate it in all its glory. Joan, you are not the only one who has enjoyed the process of dying more than the product. Just go look at the glittens I made with my own kool-aid yarn recently to see what I’m talking about!

Penny from Tampa apologized for sending so many cotton blends. Penny, I LOVE the cotton blends. Believe it or not, I knit with them quite a bit here in Minnesota. They are great for spring and fall here, and can be worn by people who complain that wool is too hot for their feet. I’m hoping to collect enough of these types to make a second blanket! Plus, every single yarn you sent is one that I would include in one or the other blanket. I had some of the heathery purple Fortissima Colori already, but it is nice to know that now there is more.

Julie from Westford, MA managed to stuff an amazing amount of yarn into a fairly small envelope – she says the solids are left over from a fair isle project and the rest are from socks. She also sent me a cute picture of herself with a giant bag of blue fiber and a cowboy hat. Very cute. Julie, I went and checked out your blog. Dayum, girl, you are a prolific knitter! I wish I had more time to explore your site, but it’s bookmarked for later.

Judy in Monson, MA sent three different gorgeous yarns, each enough to probably make an entire pair of socks on its own. Judy and I had a little e-mail discussion about this before she sent it – she says she was going to learn how to make socks, but really wants this off her plate since she has too many other projects lined up as it is. This gift was just on the edge of what I was comfortable accepting – I mean, how could I contribute to someone putting off the joy that is sock knitting? Judy insisted, and I said fine. They are lovely yarns – the pink/blue is Schaeffer Yarns Anne; the purple/gray is Classic Elite Inca Marl in 100% alpaca; and the blue/green is Art Yarns ultramerino. Because there is enough of each here for a stand-alone project, I’m not comfortable adding any of them to my blanket. I could easily add them to my stash and I know I would use them. However, in the spirit of this endeavor, if someone were to e-mail me asking for one of them and promised to knit them right away, I don’t think I could say no. I’ve been telling people who e-mail me that I will find a good home for their yarn if I can’t use it for the blankets. As hard as it would be to let these go, I will if they are called.

Margaret from Florissant, MO sent in these two full balls of Fortissima Colori. Margaret didn’t tell me that she was sending me enough to make TWO pairs of socks! It looks like one of the balls took a little trip to the frog pond, but they are beautiful yarn. Like Judy’s yarn, I feel a little guilty accepting this because it will probably not make it into any blanket till after someone knits a pair of socks from them, although as I type this perhaps I could use one of these for the blanket edging instead of buying the solid navy blue I was thinking of. Hm. I’ll have to think about that. Still, as with Judy’s, if someone really wants to knit these socks, I’m afraid I will have to surrender the yarn.

Emma from Seattle sent this nice chunk of Regia Jubilee. This is another skein that I saw in the store, had my hands on, wanted, and never bought. I love it that I’m getting the chance to knit with all these cool yarns without having to commit to an entire pair of socks in each one.

Margaret in Maple Grove, MN – just down the road from me – sent a lovely assortment of leftovers. I love how organized Margaret is – all the ball bands were securely attached to the balls, making for some easy sorting, and she has some good taste in sock yarn, too. There was even a teeny little ball of what I’m pretty sure is Opal Tiger hiding in there. Just enough for a blanket square. I also had a lot of fun e-mailing with Margaret about the local yarn shop scene and the yummy desserts available at Cafe Latte in St. Paul. I hope to see you around town some time, Margaret!

Margaret from Omaha says she is off of socks forever! Poor Margaret. Maybe some day you’ll come around to the obsession. In the mean time, using Koigu to make shawls is perfectly acceptable, not that you need my permission.

Yvonne from Bellingham, WA sent quite a pile of exactly what I asked for. All beautiful stuff. Yvonne has beautiful pictures on her blog, and is obviously skilled at much more than knitting.

Liz from Eau Claire, Wisconsin sent what looks like a whole ball of Socka. This pretty much matches a ball I got on Saturday. A girl could make a very hot-pink pair of socks that way. Hm….must-not-get-sidetracked!

Michelle from Sierra Visa, AZ sent some very nice Opal and Wildfoote and a teensy bit of Knitpicks too.

Susan from Madison, WI sent me two perfect balls of yarn. Susan, I’m surprised you didn’t want to knit socks for that sweet little boy of yours out of this! He is very cute, and we have some pictures of Julie holding a beer bottle at about that age.

Amy from California sent me a nice little assortment. Most of these are a little heavier than fingering, but I think there will be a collection of sport weight yarns to be put into their own blanket. I love the bright colors!

Nikki in Virginia sent a nice, earthy ball of Regia, which she says she bought dirt cheap on sale ages ago, a little ball of something very Regia-like, and a very cute card with a kitty on the front.

Whew! That’s a lot of good fiber. 19 packages by my count. Thanks so much to everyone who sent me yarn. The mailman saw me as I opened the door and stopped to ask me what was going on. It’s pretty hard explaining to a non-knitter why strangers from the Internet are sending me piles of packages full of yarn. Now I’d like to share with you all a few pictures of Julie enjoying the excitement with me during the initial opening that took place just after the delivery this afternoon. She didn’t put that bubble-wrap down till we made her so she could eat dinner.

We had some pretty heavy thunderstorms last night, and the rain continued through much of today. The neighbors a couple doors down lost a big tree branch, and we got some desperately-needed rain – not just for our lawn, but the farmers have been worried for their crops, so I’m happy for them, too. Unfortunately, it didn’t break the heat wave, so we spent much of the day inside again.

Here’s the promised picture of Julie – I had a hard time getting her to let me take it because she was too busy talking on her play cell phone.

I spent a few minutes this afternoon rewinding some of the balls that came in so that they would stay neat in the basket as I knit them. Here’s a picture Joe took as I held Sophie in my lap and tried to unwrap a particularly messy tangle.

I didn’t get as much knitting done today as I would have liked, but there are definitely several new squares since my last picture. I kept adding more to the end because I really want to make sure it’s wide enough for two people to comfortably cuddle under it together. Looking at this picture, if you can imagine all the blocks in even rows instead of a few sticking out here and there, you can almost pretend that it is a scarf I’m knitting instead of a blanket. A scarf out of sock yarn is a lot less ridiculous than a blanket. If this project appeals to you, but the sheer number of stitches required is intimidating, consider making a wild and crazy scarf. You need a lot fewer scraps – I could have completed one from my own modest stash – and if that were my goal, I’d be about done right now.

Meg in Alabama commented on knitting in ends as you go instead of weaving them in later. I didn’t mention this approach last night since it’s one I’ve tried in the past with mixed results – it’s okay, just not my favorite. I did a couple that way today, and they look fine. I worry a little bit about them holding as well – something about going for a ways in one direction and then turning back seems to lock those ends into place a bit better for my peace of mind. I’d much rather see ends knitted in as Meg described than knotted, so by all means if that makes you happy, you have my blessing!

Sophie has been up on and off all evening. She’s laying asleep on the Boppy pillow in my lap as I type right now. It’s time for everyone to go to bed. We have knitting group in the morning, and boy do I have stories to tell! Plus, as we speak, there may be packages headed my way, converging on our little white stucco house for me to open and revel in. I want to be well-rested for that!

This morning was a little rough. I stayed up last night till around 2, knitting on my blankie and watching the first disk of Season 1 of Weeds on DVD. I was just a little tired when Julie and Sophie woke up at 7, and Joe was clearly wanting some more sleep. Since I got to sleep in last weekend, I dragged my hiney out of bed and took the girls downstairs. I’ve been skimping on sleep all week, and I promised myself I’d go to bed earlier tonight, but I’m just starting this entry at 12:30. At least I got a nap in this afternoon.

Anyway, it’s really hot here this weekend, so we sat around and played in the living room all morning. I kept glancing out the window waiting for the mail carrier to show up, to no avail. Finally, around 2:30, I dragged both girls upstairs to take a nap because we were all getting irritable. Amazingly, everyone went to sleep and I got a little snooze in. When I came down, there was some mail on the shelf where we toss it, but no packages laying around. Joe confirmed the unfathomable: I didn’t get any packages today. After a momentary disappointment, I resigned myself to waiting for Monday and started getting the shish kebabs ready to go on the grill for dinner. I popped open the back door, and along with a huge blast of furnace-hot air, in poured three packages that the mail carrier had stuck inside the screen door. My husband gave me the “I married a crazy woman” look when he saw my little happy dance involving a spontaneous song about yarn and waving of packages.

This one came from Donna in Apple Valley, a suburb of the Twin Cities, so we’re practically neigbors. What appears to be a full ball of Fortissima Socka in a beautiful purple-pink, and two little balls of Koigu. Donna, I love it that you told me what I was looking at – a girl can’t always tell.

Elaine from Berkely, California sent me this package – an almost-full ball of Socka Color, a skein of Rowanspun 4-ply, and three little chunks of some merino/nylon that is so smooth and soft I wasn’t even sure it was wool at first. She also sent me a little baa baa black sheep card and some coupons for free naps – somebody has another hobby besides knitting I see. Very cute, Elaine.

Finally, Rebecca from Seattle sent me this huge pile of schwag. All perfectly suited for the blankie, even one with bits of glitter in it. That one is making it in the blanket – the glitter yarn was something that intrigued me, but that I didn’t have the guts to buy for myself.

Thanks to all three of you for generous contributions to my project! I know this is just the beginning, but I’m already overwhelmed with gratitude. I feel (and this is going to sound very cheesy, but I mean it) very responsible for making sure your yarn finds a good home. Accepting a gift from someone else’s stash is a serious thing. Especially looking at that pile of yarn from Rebecca – every single one of those balls spent some time in her work bag or basket, doled out the yards as she knit stitches one by one. There’s some magic in that.

Okay, and now a brief intermission from the knitting before I talk about weaving in ends to show you Sophie sitting in the high chair. (I do have two daughters, but Julie wasn’t doing anything this wildly cute today. A picture of her next time, I promise). Sophie doesn’t eat food yet, but she does enjoy sitting in the chair watching us eat.

Now, if you’re still with me, it’s time for a brief lecture on weaving in yarn ends. This should probably have its very own blog entry, but it’s after 1 in the morning and I don’t have the patience for the three extra mouse-clicks that would take me. So let’s take a look at the back side of the blankie as it looked around 8:30 this morning:

My, that’s a lot of ends. And those are just the ends since I last wove them in a couple days ago. You can ignore the white ones with pastel flecks hanging from the bottom – those are scrap yarn holding the live stitches from my provisional cast-on. The rest need to be woven in.

Now, I don’t think I know a single knitter who just looooves weaving in ends. I don’t love it either, but I’m not going to avoid a project just because there are a lot involved. We could talk all day about all the reasons why weaving in ends is an abomination of an activity, but let’s try not to talk ourselves out of getting the job done. I’m only going to say one thing about why I think many people hate to weave in ends. I think people are afraid they’re not doing it right. For the longest time, until I gained some experience and confidence, I sat there weavig in my ends wondering whether it was going to hold; wondering whether my friend Jean would approve when I showed her my project and she turned it over to look at the back side; whether I would be satisfied with the way it looked in the end. It takes time to get over that, and I think I’m finally there. The good news is that if you’re not over that fear yet, you’ll get lots of practice by the end of this project.

Here’s how *I* am weaving in my ends for this particular project. The seam-looking ridges created by picking up stitches are perfect hiding-places for yarn ends. I just go up one side of my seam and pull the yarn through,

then back in the opposite direction for about an inch or so each way. Trim that puppy off and you’re done. The whole process takes about 30 seconds per end.

As I sat there this morning catching up on my end-weaving, I thought up lots of positive things to say about the activity, in the hopes of convincing you that it’s not all that bad – in this project and in any project where the finishing is the only thing holding you back.

1. If you tackle the ends regularly as you work on your project, you won’t be faced with a huge, time-consuming mess at the end, and you won’t have to deal with all that spaghetti hanging off your project as you go along. I’ve been known to weave in the cast-on end for a sweater after knitting only a few rows just to get it the heck out of my way.

2. There’s no law against leaving a slightly longer end in the first place – say about a foot – than what most directions suggest. Threading a short little bit on the needle and keeping it there while I run the needle through the stitches in the back is much harder than a nice, long bit that won’t run away if I sneeze. Go ahead – waste a few extra inches of yarn. It’s liberating.

3. While it may be tempting to tie a knot and call it a day, and there are certainly no knitting police to come arrest you no matter how you finish your ends, weaving in is more secure and less unsightly. If you’re going to bother knitting a blanket out of freakin’ sock yarn, take the time to go ahead and do a good job weaving in the ends. Then you can proudly submit it to the State Fair and expect a better chance at a ribbon.

4. My friend Jean likes to leave the trimmed ends out in her yard for the birds to collect and use in their nests. I think that is sweet, but I like to stuff mine into a Ball jar that serves as a freaky knitter decoration.

5. I can think of about a million things that are less fun than weaving in ends – washing dishes, any form of cleaning, but especially scrubbing toilets, dealing with a screaming toddler who doesn’t want her teeth brushed – and those are just the easy, daily things. I can sit there on my couch weaving in ends and be glad I’m not – well, insert your horrible tragedy nightmare here.

6. I can download books on tape from my local library, put them on my MP3 player, and listen to them in order to make the time go faster.

That will have to be enough for now, ’cause it’s way past my bed time. I’ll leave you with a view of the blankie after the end-weaving session. I didn’t weave in the ones on the top row because there’s no handy seam nearby to weave them in yet. Their day will come. The blanket has several more squares since this picture, but I figure if I wait a day or two maybe you’ll be able to see the actual growth.

Our normal mail carrier is a heavyset guy in his 50s, who usually shows up some time late in the day – between 3 and 5. He seems nice enough, always smiles at me and the girls if we’re outside without giving any creepy, raising of hackles sensation. Our neighbor down the street likes to complain about him because he carries the mail under his arm sometimes, and if it’s warm out he gets a bit sweaty. Apparently the magazines are always showing up at their house stinky and wet. Ew. You can imagine my surprise when I was sitting on the living room floor playing with Julie and Sophie and knitting on the blankie at only 11 this morning and I looked up to see the mail being dropped off. This happens sometimes. The older guy doesn’t work every day, and when someone a bit more spry takes over, the mail comes early.

Well, I hopped right up mid-row and ran to open the door. Along with a bunch of junk mail were Two interesting-looking packages addressed to me. I love getting mail. Not the advertisements or the bills – real, live mail that human hands addressed personally to me. I plopped right back down where I started and opened them up in the blink of an eye. It felt like Christmas morning. This is what it looked like:

I opened the white box first, and found a beautiful collection of leftovers not unlike my own. In fact, at least three of the balls are exactly the same as ones I’m already including in the current blanket. She also included some lovely merino handpaints, and some sport weight bits as well. I love it that some of the balls are center-pulls obviously wrapped on a nostepinne. Okay, and to top it off – the package included a pretty little card that matched the tissue paper lining the box. Oh, and it smells good too. Now I can start to understand more fully why people love That Laurie. These are her yarns. Or they were till now bwahahaha…

Next I opened the brown padded envelope with the Disney stamps on the corner to find three more lovely yarns. Two of them look like maybe they’re sport weight, but the primary-color with grey fleck stripes will be just fine in the current blanket. This package came from Julie H. in Warrenville, IL.

Thanks so much for sharing your scraps with me Laurie and Julie. I’m looking forward to playing with *all* of them, but for today I chose one from each batch and added them to my blanket. That big black and blue square is from Laurie’s stash, and the smaller red, black and teal one to its right is from Julie’s. I’ve got another block from that same yarn on the needles now.

I decided it was time to go ahead and move this project into a slightly bigger basket, and here you can see how it’s looking right now. I’m still madly in love with it. I think it would be great if I could get at least one square knit from each package the day it arrives like I did today, but I have a feeling that this was the trickle through the crack right before the dam breaks. Tomorrow will probably be another trickle, and I’m thinking next week the deluge is coming. I promise that I will do my very best to at least take pictures and post them each day as the yarn comes in. I’m still trying to decide how and when to start sorting the yarn. Should I keep it with the packages for now? Should I go ahead and make piles by fiber and weight (as the organizer in me is begging to do)? I’m not sure.

Several people have asked me where I got the idea for this blanket, or whether it is my own design. The answer is yes, as much as a simple mitered-square blanket like this can be any one person’s design, this one is mine. Where did the idea come from?

Well, Ann and Kay have been mitering for the last year or two, just in a slightly different way. They like to make their blocks all seperate and sew them up at the end. I really don’t care for sewing things up any more than I have to, so while I love their results that process didn’t appeal to me so much. Although, I just popped over to their site so I could cut-and-paste the URL, and it looks like Kay’s been picking up stitches for her latest dishrag, and now that I think about it more, their log cabin blankets are all done in one piece too.

I’ve looked at several different books on modular knitting, including Modular Knits by Iris Schreier; Module Magic by Ginger Luters; and Domino Knitting by Vivian Høxbro, among others. I also took a class on entrelac at this year’s Yarnover event hosted by the Minnesota Knitters’ Guild. This project isn’t exactly entrelac, but it does have a lot in common with it.

So I had a lot of modular ideas floating around in my brain. I finished up a bunch of socks recently, and was putting away the scraps in the (overflowing) bin of other scraps, and wondered what I would ever do with them all and should I just get rid of them. So like all the other knitters out there, I just stuck the thing back in the closet to think about later. But that night as I was falling asleep, this blanket popped into my head. The next morning I could hardly wait to start sorting yarn. The skills and other information necessary to make this design were pretty much already in my head, so I just started cranking away. That’s how I ended up with the beginnings of a blanket and not enough yarn.

Someone named Dee asked me a question about making the blanket a different way, but didn’t leave me an e-mail address to which I can respond. So I’ll just say here that I’m making this blanket only one of the bajillion ways that it could be made. The possibilities are endless, and therein lies the joy of knitting. The cool thing here is that we’re using scrap yarn, so go ahead and give your idea a whirl. Worst case scenario is that you don’t like what you’re doing and you either rip it out, shove it back in the closet to hide for a few more years, or burn the damned thing. But you just might come up with something fun and wonderful too.

Okay, I have enough time to go play with my yarn a bit more before bed, but tomorrow I think I’ll share my thoughts on weaving in all those ends.

For those of you who have spent the last 23 hours or so churning out single mitered squares and are waiting with bated breath for installment number two of the blankie tutorial, here we go. While you weren’t looking, I knit up a second singleton square the same way as the first. I laid them side by side, right sides up. The right side is the one where you can see your decreases, the ridge in the middle will be a ridge rather than a valley on this side.

Notice all those yarn ends? We’ll be dealing with them later. As someone pointed out, we are going to have a lot of fiddly yarn ends, but never fear I have coping mechanisms to help you deal with them.

Starting with the square on the right, you are going to pick up and knit 15 stitches from the top point down the left side to the middle corner. You should be able to do this by picking up one stitch in each of the chain links down the side of the block. If you’re short a stitch, just find one either in the very top or the very bottom of the edge.

With the same needle, you need to pick up and knit 15 more stitches on the lefthand block from the middle corner to the top. When you have done this, it should look something like this:

Turn the work, and knit across the back side till you get to the middle between the two pieces. Pick up the running yarn, and make an increase stitch right between them. Sorry this picture isn’t all that great. I took it myself while Julie was eating lunch and my thumb holding the work got in the way.

Finish knitting the row plain. Turn your work again, and suddenly you should recognize where you are. You’re ready to do your first decrease row for the block, just like you did in the first single block. Go ahead and knit that square up, and you should have a little group of three squares that look something like the group on the right in this picture:

So then you either make another single block, or pull one out of the pile you already did today while I was busy playing in the sand box, dragging Julie to the allergist, and changing no fewer than three poopy diapers among other things. Join that one to the group you just made, and you’re on your way. Here’s a picture of that end of my blankie once the group of three was joined in:

Once you’ve got your row going, you’ll have a bunch of peaks and valleys, ready for you to pick up more stitches on the top and add in another row of blocks. Pick up the 15 stitches on the right, then pick up a single stitch from the block in the middle, then 15 more from the block on the left. Knit back across the back, turn again and you’re ready to start your decreases.

If you want to do something a little different, you could try building up higher peaks and valleys and pick up four blocks’ worth of stitches at once to make a giant mitered square. I’m planning to insert these at random in my blanket. Notice, I’ve got a fairly large ball of yarn attached to this one, but if you were to run out mid-ball, you could just spit-splice in another yarn for a cool effect. We’ll see how my giant square looks tomorrow, I hope.

As you get past your second row or so, you’ll need to do something about the edges of your blanket to keep them from getting narrower and narrower, turning it into a triangle shape if you don’t add in a filler block on the edge. To do this, pick up stitches on the leftmost square in the second row (in my example, it’s the heathered purple one), pick up your one stitch in the square below (the one with the orange and black stripes), and then cast on 15 more stitches to make the other half of the square.

I added an extra one on the left side so I could make the thing a little taller while I figured out how wide I wanted it to be. I think I’ve gotten it just about wide enough now, so I’ll be adding in more blocks at the edge on the right and stacking it taller in the next few days. Here’s what I have so far. All the white strings hanging down are scrap yarn that will be taken out as I knit on the I-cord bind-off. I think I’m going to start that part next week some time just to clear up some of those nasty ends, and also to make sure that it works out okay so I can formulate a plan B if I have to before I go too much further. I’m actually going to buy a couple skeins of a solid navy blue for the border, I think.

As it came time for the mail carrier to show up today, I wondered whether he would bring any yarn with him – I thought if someone had been in a real rush to the post office and they weren’t too far away, it was possible. Not yet, and I breathed a sigh of relief. I still have a bit of time left to prepare for the onslaught. We here at the Kang household suffer from no lack of stash to begin with, and I thought maybe you would like to see where your yarn is going to end up, at least while I sort it out. My office room doubles as our guest bedroom, and I took a few pictures from the corner while sitting on the bed, then stitched them all together in Photoshop. The room looks a lot bigger than it actually is, I guess because of the perspective in the photos.

The swift and ballwinder are waiting patiently on the table. At least one person said she is sending me a ball that her cat tangled up, and I’m prepared to split other skeins up to go in various kits should I actually receive the amount of yarn that people have threatened to ship here.

There are a couple of tubs of baby clothes waiting to be disposed – either on e-bay or to the local charity thrift shop – but I’m waiting till they’re close to in season again to take care of that.

The closet is mostly filled with bins of yarn, knitted objects and knitting tools, although there is a sewing machine in there along with some empty project baskets, some – dare I admit it – scrapbooking materials, and other various junk too.

My desk is a cluttered jumble, but I’m enjoying a Summit Winter Ale that has been in our fridge since the party we threw in December. This whole burial-in-yarn thing is driving me to delicious drink. I also have a knitting project on my desk for while I’m reading something or waiting for a page to load. It’s not the blankie. It’s a leg for the pants I’m knitting Julie, which is mostly plain stockinette and requires absolutely no thought or eye contact.

There are a couple of bookshelves covered with techno-crap and other things that needed to be out of Julie’s reach. On the tall bookshelf is more stash, too pretty to be stuck in te hcloset – a few skeins of sock yarn waiting to be started – this yarn is not part of the blanket project because I don’t know exactly how much, if any, will be left over after the socks are knit. That depends partly on who they’re for. I even have a few skeins of Koigu hanging on the wall, which you can just barely see at the far right. I keep telling myself I better hurry up and knit them before they get sun-damaged.

Okay, now you know what it looked like before the packages and piles from this wonderful project take over my room. I really need to try to contain it in here so that Little Miss Julie doesn’t destroy it all. What you didn’t see, because they’re not in my office, are the bookshelves of knitting books and the several baskets of work in progress. Those are for another day. I have to go catch up on the sleep I didn’t get last night.

This is just a quick little post to show off what I managed to do during naptime today. It’s not all that impressive, really, but it’ll do unless and until someone comes up with something better.

If you want to knit a blanket along with me, I would be thrilled. I would be even more thrilled if you would join a knitalong, and you could post a button to your blog if you want. Just save it to your own server before you link to it, please. We all know my server has all the traffic it can handle at the moment! Let me know if you want to join and I’ll put your name and blog link up in my sidebar. This is my first time participating in, let alone hosting a knitalong, so let me know if I’m missing anything.

Also, during lunch I managed to get started on the next part of the tutorial. If everything goes well tonight, we’ll be cranking right along.

Oh, how I can feel the eyes rolling as I type. Yes, I’m going to make you do a gauge swatch. But – go ahead and breathe a sigh of relief – if you like it, this will be the first block in your new blankie.

Before we start knitting, you have to pick out some yarn. The beauty of this blankie is that you can really use any yarn you want that you think is appropriate for a blanket. Fingering weight sock yarn is actually a little bit insane. A much more rational choice would be a nice worsted-weight that would knit up much more quickly, but the choice is yours (and mine!) The only thing I have to suggest is that you use all one weight of yarn within a reasonable window (as in, Regia sock yarn is a little thicker than Opal, but we can handle that level of difference.)

You’ll need a couple of needles as well. I picked US size 1, or 2.5 mm needles, but I knit quite loosely so go with what ever size needles you would normally knit the yarn or your choice with. Remember, this is a gauge swatch, so if the fabric looks too loose or too sturdy knit up, you can knit another with bigger or smaller needles. I’m using rather short double-points because that is what was convenient in my stash. Double-points are not necessary – you could use circulars or straights if you wanted to. I like the dpns because they don’t stick way out like straights would, and we’re not working on that many stitches at any given time.

For my square, I cast on 31 stitches and I used a provisional cast-on. You can use any odd number of stitches greater than 3 depending on the size of square that you want, but start with 15 for your gauge swatch and go up or down from there if you like. I call the version of provisional cast-on that I use the “itsy bitsy spider” because that’s what Jean, who taught it to me, calls it. There is a very nice tutorial on Knitty showing how to do it. Any provisional cast-on you care to use will work here, and the reason I’m using one is so that I can go back and do an applied I-cord bind-off for trim later. If you want to keep it more simple, you may use whatever favorite cast-on you normally use, just keep it loose, and you’ll be able to skip the I-cord step at the end of the project. Here’s a picture of my square after I cast on the stitches and knit one row plain:

For the next row, and all following rows, we’re going to slip the first stitch as if to purl with the yarn in front, and when we get to the last stitch in the row, we’re going to knit it through the back loop. This will produce an edging that looks like a smooth, untwisted chain, and make picking up stitches easier when it’s time to do the next row of blocks.

We’re also going to start decreasing our stitches two at a time right in the middle of the row – but only on right-side rows. So, slip that first stitch, knit 13 more, then slip two more stitches as if to knit at the same time. Then knit the next stitch and pass the two slipped stitches back over that newly knit stitch, just as you would in a simple bind-off. This produces a double-decrease that is nicely centered and leaves the center stitch showing in the front. I learned this technique from Meg Swansen at her camp, and she describes it nicely in her books as well. You could probably find it somewhere on the internet, too, but it is 1:30 in the morning and I’m tired. Okay, so after your decrease, continue across the row knitting plain, then remember to knit into the back of that last stitch.

Now knit a row just like the one above but without the decrease.
Now knit a row just like the decrease row, but you’ll only knit 12 plain before the decrease.
Keep doing this, subtracting one stitch before the decrease on each decrease row. Pretty soon it will look something like this:

If you keep going till you run out of stitches, you will be doing just the decrease step on that last row, then you can break the yarn and pull the last loop bigger and bigger till the tail pops through. You should now have a square that looks something like this:

My square is about 3 inches or 8 cm across diagonally, but yours can be whatever size you have and it will work out just fine, I promise! Also, because we might need this information later when we go to figure out just exactly how much yarn our blanket is going to take (something I should have done before I started, but I didn’t because I figured I could just beg the Internet for more), I weighed my little swatch. I have a postage scale at home for just this type of circumstance, and it is accurate to a tenth of an ounce. It barely registered one tenth of an ounce, and that is after I breathed heavy on it, including the tails hanging off. That translates to…give me a second….somewhere around 2.8 grams. Let’s be super generous and say 3 grams. See? I told you it didn’t take much for a square! Remember, if you’re using a different yarn or a different number of stitches, of course you’re going to get a different weight at this juncture. Actually, even with the same materials I used, most knitters would get slightly different results if they had a scale that was more accurate than mine. But let’s not be too nit-picky here.

Whoo! That was a bit long-winded, but I’m trying not to assume any skills. That said, no question is a dumb question unless left unasked, so ask away and I’ll do a FAQ tomorrow. Just don’t get ahead of this part. There will be more instructions on the many other steps when I am less tired – I’m running out of hours before the kids get up, and unlike Stephanie and the many other knitters out there in blog-land who frequent the coffee shops, I am non-caffeinated, at least while nursing, so I need my sleep. If you’re really gung-ho and want to start churning out a blanket, you have my permission to make a whole little pile of these swatches. Just make sure you stop when you have enough that when you lay them all point to point in a row they are the length that you want your blanket to be wide. Or, just knit two of these squares and we’ll hook them together with a third one tomorrow.

I’m going to leave you with a rather scary picture of me holding Sophie while wearing my bed-time attire – my contacts are out, the nerdy glasses are on, I’ve got my hair pulled back, no bra, and a slobber stain on my crappy old t-shirt where Sophie has been licking me. Also, I’ve got a nice set of bruises on the flabby back of my arm where Sophie has been habitually pinching me as she nurses. Yeouch! Sorry for the personal stuff for you non-mommy knitters, but this is as much a mommy blog as it is a knitting one. You’ll just have to suffer through it.

Joe came home from work today, did five minutes worth of fiddling while I was serving up dinner, and suddenly there were 80 new messages in my in-box! Our server seems to be chugging along on all fronts once more, although there were a few hours this morning when I’m pretty sure nothing at all was working. Dare I admit that the worst part was I couldn’t get on the internet and read my favorite blogs? Practically killed me.

So far, my evening has consisted of the regular dinner and bedtime routine for Julie, then a trip to the grocery store so we’d have something to eat this week – tonight’s dinner was a scrounging batch of fried rice since I didn’t get the shopping done sooner. When I got home, Sophie was asleep just long enough for me to get the groceries put away, then I nursed her and answered a few e-mails till she fell back asleep – please blame any typos or lack of capitalization on one-handed typing. Now she’s back in the crib I can go full blast responding to the e-mails and comments and maybe even have a few minutes to start talking about blankie-making instructions.

Meanwhile, I’m going to share some more questions, comments and responses with y’all.

Q: Aren’t you excited to have been mentioned on Stephanie’s blog? How did you get her to do it?
A: Yes! I’m thrilled. I am a total Stephanie fan-girl, and so not worthy of her notice. But then I remind myself that she is a very real person just like the rest of us, and if she’s anything in person like she is in her writing then I like to think that maybe we would get along well in person. I might even almost be able to hold my own in conversation with her. How did I get her to do it? Well, I asked nicely, and apparently I struck her funny bone in my naivete.

Comment: Do you know how much trouble you’re in?
A: I’m only just starting to fully appreciate that. But it’s a good kind of trouble. I’m getting the chance to e-mail with lots of interesting knitters that I otherwise would never “meet”, and I can’t wait to go back through all the e-mails and follow links to blogs and web pages. I am reading and responding to every e-mail individually, but I want to answer promptly so have not allowed myself to do any blog browsing in the process. As for all the yarn, well, it’s going to be so much fun opening all the packages, taking pictures to share with the readers, sorting through it and sharing it with those who have expressed an interest. Sounds like fun trouble to me!

Q: How about a blankie knit-along?
A: I think that’s a great idea! I’m going to be posting the instructions soon, I promise! Maybe I can even make up one of those fancy buttons and I could post a list of people who are blogging their blankies along with me. I’m thinking I’ll get right on that as soon as the instructions are up.

Q: What’s your favorite yarn shop in the Twin Cities?
A: I’m really pleasantly surprised by how many locals have contacted me because of this. I’m a little biased on this because I teach at the Yarnery, but they have one of the nicest selections of basic wools in town. We have a ton of great shops here, so it’s hard to name just a few, but I also like Needlework Unlimited, All About Yarn, Borealis Yarns, the Yarn Cafe and Amazing Threads, among others. I don’t have the freedom to explore yarn shops that I did before the kids.

Q: What is your favorite sock-knitting book?
A: Folk Socks, in particular is great for the history and the basic recipes. There’s an XRX Publications book called Socks, Socks, Socks that’s a lot of fun to look at, and Lucy Neatby’s sock book is a lot of fun. Most of the time when I knit socks, I use my own short-row toe-up pattern or the basic traditional pattern and add in details as the mood strikes. Some of my original designs have been published in Dawn Brocco’s (now defunct) sock newsletter, the Heels and Toes Gazette.

Q: Are you going to make a blanket with the extras and donate it to charity?
A: Honestly? Probably not. I’m already planning to make two couch-sized blankets – one for each of my girls. If I have the fortitude to make that many little mitered squares on size 1 needles and weave in all those ends before you all have long forgotten about me, I’m going to be very proud of myself. In fact, when I started this project, before I started begging for yarn, I said something about how I want to make sure that no matter what I make at least one square a day. If I were to go at that rate it would take me well over a year to meet that first goal. I think it’s going to come together a lot faster than that, but it’s too far out in my knitting future to promise a charity blanket. On the other hand, if some wonderful knitter wants to step up and offer to do one, I would send them the yarn so fast they wouldn’t know what hit them. I do have another idea on a cool way to do a related charity project, but that’s for another post. Brainstorming on this in the comments is welcome, snarky comments on why I’m not worthy for you to send me your yarn not so much.

Q: Will you send/e-mail me the blanket pattern?
A: Sorry, no. I haven’t typed it up yet, and it’s going to appear here first when I do (hopefully in the next day or so before I am inundated with boxes!) It is a lot easier for you to just print it out from here than for me to send out that many more e-mails. I guess you’ll just have to keep coming back for more!

Okay, it’s midnight on Wednesday night. I just got caught up on the e-mails agian. Just another reminder that if you want me to respond to you, you have to put your e-mail address in the comment, or fill it in on the little form on the commenting page! Also, I may have missed a couple people here or there through nursing-mom error, so if you were expecting a reply from me and didn’t get one, would you mind just sending me another e-mail at shellyk at shellykang dot com? Thanks.

I just can’t get over the generousity here! I know I am doing a service to many of you who just want this yarn off your hands, and that is what keeps me from feeling super-guilty about taking free yarn from strangers. That, and knowing that I’m going to share the excess with others who want it.

Now, I’m off to go take some pictures for the start of my tutorial which may or may not get posted tonight (and I’m thinking it’s the latter).