April 26th, 2009 § 0
Kaity’s first square for Grandma’s blanket is the Horizontal Chain square from Barbara Walker’s Learn-To-Knit-Afghan Book.
Horizontal Chain
This was her first attempt at stranded knitting, and she did a terrific job.
Technical specs:
March 16th, 2009 § 0
For his first contribution to Grandma’s Blanket, Poohpah decided to try the Lattice and Seed Stitch square from Barbara Walker’s Learn-To-Knit-Afghan Book.
Lattice and Seed Stitch Square
Technical specs:
January 26th, 2009 § 0
I had this idea to get all the knitters in the family together to knit a lap blanket for my grandmother, who had taught more than one of us how to knit, and knit many items for the rest of us. With 5 of us working on the blanket, I reasoned, knitting six squares each, we would finish it in no time (or at least Christmas). When I discussed it with Nana, in August I think, she pointed out that Grandma wasn’t doing very well, and what would we do if she passed away before the blanket was finished?
I told her about Project Linus, a charity I have worked with before, and how I thought that there could be no better tribute to Grandma than to donate the blanket in her memory to someone in need. Nana and Poohpah picked out the yarn, in shades of Grandma’s favorite color. Something soft, that wouldn’t irritate sensitive skin. I still haven’t managed to convince Nana of the softness of wool, though the handknit wool socks I gave her for her birthday might be changing her mind.
Nana, Poohpah, and Kaity got to work right away. I, being the organizer, still have roughly 6 squares to knit. In the meantime, the handiwork of the other family knitters will be featured here. First up is Nana’s square, a basketweave pattern of her own design.
Nana's Basketweave Square
Technical specs:
September 5th, 2008 § 2
I learned to knit from my maternal grandmother. It was summertime, and she and her husband were back in Oklahoma, docked at a marina in Sallisaw. A few years before, they had sold their house and moved onto their fully restored trawler, spending most of the year touring up and down the east coast and wintering in Florida.
But this summer, they had come through the Gulf, up the Mississippi, and along the Arkansas river to Sallisaw, 160 miles east of my hometown, and I got to spend a whole week aboard the Mary Ann with them. Jack took me for rides around the marina in the dinghy, Grandma took me to the library to get books, and I spent the week sleeping in the V-berth, eating runny scrambled eggs for breakfast, and just hanging out with them.
That was the week that Grandma showed me how to knit, with giant aluminum needles and squeaky acrylic yarn. She was a crafty woman. Knit, crochet, cross-stitch, quilting, sewing, she was skilled at all of them. I was horrible at knitting. My adolescent hands couldn’t make sense of holding two needles plus yarn and making anything but knots. But my grandmother had endless patience, and by the end of the week I was practicing knit 1, purl 2.
After that week, I didn’t pick up needles again for 20 years, and by then, I had forgotten the lessons and had to teach myself all over again. Online how-to videos made all the difference. I’ve been seriously knitting for a few years now, and I always have a project on the needles. This week, I self-published my first knitting pattern, and have been busy swatching for Hat Attack II. I finally got gauge on my size 1 magic loop needle.
Grandma has been ill for a while, she has Parkinson’s and osteoporosis, and a few months ago she fell, fracturing her pelvis. It’s been a pretty steady decline from there, and she’s now in a long-term care facility. My mom and step-dad have the task of clearing out Grandma’s apartment at the independent living center, shredding years of paper work (they found a box labeled “Tax Records 1977″), giving away furniture, and sifting through memories.
Pink and Blue Afghan
November 21st, 2007 § 0
Sounds like some terminal disease, doesn’t it? The doctor says I have Intarsia. For the non-knitters, it’s a way of knitting with multiple blocks of color where they aren’t stranded across the back of the work. All of the multi-color blocks I have knit so far have been done using stranding, which I discovered today is also Fair Isle. I’ve been Fair Isle knitting for months and had no idea. Unlike Fair Isle, Intarsia involves lots of yarn bobbins, which thankfully Granny sent me this summer.
I’m now 3 squares away from having Hannah’s afghan ready to join. The plan is to make a kid’s size afghan using 27 LTKA squares and 3 “special” squares from other sources. I’ve finished all the squares I picked from the Learn To Knit Afghan Book, so I decided to start on the initial square. Originally, I had just planned a two-color design with a large block H in the center. But I found a Celtic Alphabet cross-stitch pattern generator online, and decided to use the Celtic H instead.
I laid the pattern out in my knitting journal, cast on 40 stitches, and began knitting the background. Seven rows in, it was time to join the new color, and it occurred to me that I have no idea how to do it. Googling intarsia instructions brought up a link to KnittingHelp.com with a how-to intarsia video (it’s under the knitting with two colors section). My biggest concern was how to start the new color without leaving a hole, and the site also has good video directions for joining yarn in the Knitting Tips section.
I did have to frog the square, however, when I realized that I had purled the first row, so that the H was going to be backwards. But it was practice.
