Blankie Friday - the Penultimate Edition

I had a really tough decision to make this afternoon.

The i-cord edging on my blanket has been going incredibly quickly. I had been dreading it a bit as I approached the end of the blanket, because I was afraid it would take longer to work than I had remembered from the first chunk I worked lo these many moons ago. But it turns out I was able to get up the right side, across the top, and down a good chunk of the left side in the last few days, leaving only a handful of diamonds' worth of edge unfinished by this afternoon. Only an hour, two at most, worth of work left to do.

I went ahead and took pictures during daylight hours, still hoping that maybe just maybe I would have it finished this evening. But then we decided to make cookies instead of watch a video, so I had no couch time before the kids went to bed...and Julie had a melt down at the end of dinner, so there was no time to knit while they were in the bath...and yet I still held out in my mind - I could hold of writing up this post until later tonight when the blankie is - dare I say it - done. I can really hardly believe it now that I am to this point. The blanket will, one way or another, be complete later this evening. But I made the decision to post early, finish later.

A few weeks ago, Wannietta asked me if I would feel sad or a little let-down when the project is finished, after being attached to it for so long. At the time I didn't answer her, but I laughed to myself and thought "yeah, right." But I knew what she meant at the time, and the question has stuck with me. The answer is yes, I will - a little.

So I will assuage that feeling by holding on to the Blankie Fridays for one more week, and next Blankie Friday we will go out with a big bang. There will be contests! Rules in a moment. The blankie will be blocked and spiffy, not rumply and covered in cat hair as it is right now. We will come up with some creative ideas for pictures. I will take you on a little trip down memory lane and we will give the blankie a little blog-party. I'll outline the contest in a minute, but first let's look at some pictures.

There is no big-picture picture tonight. I did take some big-picture pictures, but I'm going to hold back for a couple of reasons. First, the blanket looks so much different now with a nice straight edge across the top. It looks almost like a finished project, and I don't want to steal next week's thunder. Because it really is beautiful, if I do say so myself. Second, the blanket really needs to be blocked. As you may be able to tell in some of the close-up pictures in a moment, the corners aren't very sharp right now, and the i-cord is wanting to roll a bit. The edges need to be told who's boss. Sorry about that, but if you really need a big-picture fix, go look at last week's Blanket Friday. It's pretty close.

I will show you the one remaining edge awaiting it's i-cord application.



At the top is the ball of yarn, attached and waiting its fate. At the bottom is the start of the i-cord, and one of the last two tails remaining to be woven in (yay!) It has been so gratifying as I work my way around the blanket to get rid of all the nasty little dangling ends and bits of scrap yarn holding my provisional cast ons in place.

Here are the close-ups of the final week's worth of square knitting (for those of you who love spotting the yarns you sent in).







This little shot I took after the main photo session. I've got all the remaining provisional cast-on stitches loaded onto a 000 Addi Turbo and am cranking away on the last bit of I-cord. Can I confess that I've been watching old episodes of 30 Rock on Netflix Live in the evenings, and they go together perfectly. It's very entertaining, but doesn't require much eye contact. You can see in this picture that I'm working my way up the side that doesn't have live stitches. At the end of each i-cord row, I pick up the next stitch along the blanket edge that gets knit together with the third i-cord stitch each time around. The live-stitch edges are about twice as fast to knit as the pick-up stitch edges.



Okay, now to the contest. There will be several parts, but for all parts I must emphasize - I *must* have a way of contacting you via e-mail, or don't even bother entering. The last contest I had, I was incredibly frustrated by the number of people who, despite my request, didn't leave their e-mail in the comment and had their Blogger profile set to private. I need to be able to e-mail you to confirm that you want the prize so that if you don't I can offer it to someone else. It's that simple. Also, it's really frustrating on a regular basis when someone leaves a comment asking a question and leaves no contact information. Would it be so bad to set your blogger profile to public and list an e-mail address there? I'm even okay with sending a message on Ravelry if you just give me your Ravelry id, if you're worried about spam.

Part the first: I've been wanting to ask this question for a long time - there are several yarns that people sent me that I really love. Ones that I'd like to make pairs of socks out of some day. So following are pictures of the squares I made out of them. The first reader who identifies each yarn and sends me to an online store that carries it in the colorway shown gets a set of my notecards with closeup pictures of my projects on them, and maybe an additional surprise in the mail.

A:


B:


C:


D:


Part the second - in Ravelry alone, there are 90 projects listed for my blankie pattern/tutorial. I know there are more out there. For those of you already knitting blankies who could benefit from additional chunks of leftovers, please comment with a link to a picture of the current state of your blankie, and let me know if there are any specific requests for colors. I will give away my remaining stash of superwash wool/nylon fingering weight just like what went into my blankie.

I want everyone who considers taking any of this yarn to understand something, though. When I started this project, before I was flooded with gifts after the Yarn Harlot linked to me, I thought it was going to be a 20-year project. I wasn't planning to make it my main knitting obsession for a year and a half. But then I received all these gifts and I realized that I now had a responsibility to show all the people who had generously sent them to me that I appreciated them and that they were being well-used. So I knit them up. I did not hoard them in my stash for an indefinite period like so many other yarns I own. If you take some of this yarn, I expect you to take on some of that responsibility as well. Depending on the number of entries, I will split up what I have into reasonable packages and draw names randomly.

Part the third - this one is for everyone. Simply leave a comment (separate from any other comment entries) saying "Show me the blankie!" (those exact words, please - I'm going to use an automatic sorting feature in Outlook) and you'll be entered for a prize package including a skein of my hand dyed yarn, some note cards, a set of my favorite Pony Pearl knitting needles, a sock project bag by Messie Craftie (no affiliation - I just love her bags and want an excuse to order another for myself as well ;-), and a copy of one of my favorite sock knitting books - your choice of Nancy Bush's Folk Socks, Interweave Knit's Favorite Socks, or Lucy Neatby's Cool Socks - Warm Feet. It'll be kind of like the Secret Pal package I would send to myself if I were my own Secret Pal, only the winner will get it instead. I guess I'd better throw in some chocolate as well.

Alright, that's it. Um, if you're out there and you're reading and you have a blog - send your friends here for the party next Friday. There'll be lots of pictures and fun facts about the blankie. A huge thanks to all of you who have hung with me on this and seen me through this far. I'm off to fire up the 30 Rock and have one last knitting session with the blankie.

Editing to add - comments closed because the contest is over. Check out the wrap-up post for final blankie pictures.