Tag: crafts

Blanket Update

November 2, 2020 6 of 8

I tried, but it looks like eight posts isn’t going to happen today, either. Well, better luck tomorrow. I did leave my word count goal behind me over 300 words ago. So there’s that.

So, I’m still unraveling the blanket and trying to figure out how to make a large knitted blanket out of all of these pieces without losing a lot of yarn to knots when it hit me.

As I said earlier, this blanket is ancient. Some of the threads are snapping as I unravel them because they’re so worn. So I’m going to have to knit it from two strands held together as one.

This is one of my weirder photos. I was unable to get a picture of the Washington Monument that I really liked, partially because of my equipment but mostly because of the fact that they’d drained the reflecting pool when we were there in 2010. When we were walking along the National Mall, though, I noticed that I could see the reflection of the Monument in this puddle. So now, if this blog ever does take off, this pigeon will be famous.

So, rather than pairing up strands, what if I double the strand over and join it to another strand with a square knot*? Then I don’t have to find two strands the same length. I mean, knotting it this way will automatically make two strands the same length kind of by definition.

I don’t know why I didn’t think of this before.

*That’s the knot where you bend both strands in half and then loop one loop through the other and then pull the non-looped end through the loop. That’s probably not really any clearer, but it’s nearly midnight and I’ve had a busy day, so that’s probably the best I can do right now.

Gratuitous Amazon Link time! This one’s by one of my favorite kidlit authors, so you’ll be seeing her name a lot. This 12-hour period will be brought to you by Winterborne Home for Vengeance and Valor, by Ally Carter. I wasn’t really thrilled by the title, but the story was fantastic. April comes to live at the Winterborne house with a group of orphans. April has a key with the Winterborne family crest on it, and she’s convinced that the key opens a lock somewhere in the house.

I Have a New Hobby

November 2, 2020 1 of 8

Okay, maybe it’s not technically a hobby, but it is a long-enough-term project that if I end up developing an enjoyment of it, it might count.

Back when I was married, I would get very hot under heavier beadspreads. I would end up sleeping on top of the covers with a thin blanket, rather than under them. I would even develop a rash that looked like a heat rash.

So, once I was single, I went out and bought a big white cotton blanket and dyed it blue-green to coordinate with my bedroom. The blanket was kind of small, so thinking that I might have shrunk it when I dyed it, I bought another in a different color and just left it. I don’t know if I was right about the shrinking but it was larger.

Gratuitous photo time! I’m going through my old photos looking for any that I can edit into something useful. As you can probably tell, this is the Lincoln Memorial. My next two gratuitous photos will also be from my 2010 trip to DC. I wish I’d gotten some better photos of, i think it was Tian Tian. Oh, well. I’ll do what I can with what I have.

Now I’m forgetting. There may have been another blanket along the line that I tossed after I lost Velcro, because as he aged, he needed to pull himself up onto the bed by his claws.

Anyway, eventually I got this kind of sage green blanket, which was also bigger than the teal one. I used this one for *years.* It started to fall apart and I just turned it so that that part wasn’t where I was sleeping and kept going.

Well, I finally gave up on it recently and while I was thinking how much space this thing would take up in my garbage can (it’s huge!), I realized that it’s made of discrete pieces of yarn and decided to unravel it and use that yarn to make a new blanket.

I had no idea how much work would go into unraveling this blanket. I’ve been working on it on and off for a couple of weeks now and I barely have anything unraveled.

I’m probably going to have to will this project to my grandchildren.

I used to knit in front of the television. My new hobby is going to be unraveling a blanket while watching YouTube.

I’m staying in a hotel on Thursday night, so maybe I’ll bring it with me and take a picture and then when I’m in a different hotel on Saturday, I’ll take another picture and see if there’s any progress at all.

Gratuitous Amazon Link! For this post, my book is Solutions and Other Problems, by Allie Brosh. After a seven-year absence, Brosh returned with this book and while I hope she doesn’t disappear for seven years again, this was worth the wait. This one is the Kindle version.