Several weeks ago one of my coworkers called me over into her cubicle and gave me a very unexpected gift. Her mother passed away recently, and she'd been packing stuff up at her condo to give to relatives and sell, so the home could be sold. The mother was an avid knitter and crocheter, and when my coworker came upon her stash of equipment, she told me, she "immediately thought of me as someone who might get some use out of it."
So, I have inherited a varied collection of knitting needles and crochet hooks, cable needles, sewing needles, and, best of all, now-out-of-print pattern books, mostly for blankets, because that was what this lady loved to make most. Plus, I also have a bunch of gauge swatches she made, pinned to little bits of card covered in perfect schoolteacher handwriting setting out the patterns they were made to test.
And also...
My coworker brought another bag, full of yarn and...knitted blanket squares.
Her mother's last started project, before she got too sick to continue.
And she asked if there was anything I could do with it.
It turned out, there are twelve completed squares, and I quickly located the pattern book they are from amid those given to me. It's a book of 60 patterns, meant to be put together however the maker wishes into blankets of 20 squares. I figured out which of the numbered patterns were already made, and selected eight more that I thought might go well with them.
So now!
I am working on completing!
My coworker's mother's last knitting project!
Mind blowing craftmanship by tatami artist Kenzie Yamada.
The soaring crane design comes in jigsaw puzzle like pieces, and mats are in fact monocolor. Dark/light areas appear thanks to how each tatami straw mat is woven, beautifully catching the light.
You can see below the different weave directions depending on the tatami parts:
and in this video how those pieces react to light with a mesmerizing shimmer:
This has been sitting in my WIP box for ages because I really wanted to do a fancy border with different minecraft blocks but I decided that it's good as it is! I'd like to change the mat to something a little fancier but that can wait
Pulled these out of the oven this morning and rinsed them and took down notes about saturation, dye bath exhaustion, etc.
The dye baths after removing the yarn. Only the blacklight blue fully exhausted but I was dyeing everything at 1% dye powder by weight (dyeing a 10g skein with 0.1g dye powder) and I've dyed blacklight blue at 3% dye powder by weight and had it exhaust so that wasn't a surprise. Everything else had a mild tint left but that's fine.
The rinsed skeins! Vivid violet did not saturate and dyed unevenly so at some point I'm going to overdye it with another 1% dye powder and see if that's enough. Blacklight blue is a lot lighter irl (it does glow under a blacklight) and florescent orange is a little less red irl but I am working with an old phone so my camera struggles with certain colors.
Overall? I LOVE them. Eye searing yarn my beloved. At some point I'm going to dye some wool/Angora yarn I have in all these colors (and also hot fuchsia) and make myself a poncho!
Does anyone here know where I could procure a medieval spindle for grasped spinning? One of those small whorled short things that you twiddle between your fingers with the distaff wedged under your other arm?
I really wanna learn the technique.... supported spinning isn't for me (I like to stand or walk when I spindle spin) so I thought maybe medieval style could be something.
Omg I'm over 300 pieces now??? Left the choir rehearsal weekend with 3 pieces missing from this row and quickly finished it during my next pen and paper session. It's finally big enough to keep my feet covered when I sit on the couch with my legs up ❤️
Tilly loves this blanket, today she ran up as soon as I started getting under the blanket and one minute later she was purring, cuddled up next to my legs on the blanket ❤️
(see on the left the remaining pieces of batch 2)
Have another one with Tilly for scale. From the top she's black!
The pattern is "Puzzle Pieces" by Megan Ellinger and you can buy it on Ravelry. Find my other progress pictures under the tag "#puzzle pieces blanket".