Aunty's Blanket

The blanket is finished and has been received by my aunty. She is very excited and it is less than a week since her birthday so all in all I consider that it was finished on time. It arrived in time for her to see it before a chemo session and come home and snuggle under it.


The blanket is so soft and very beautiful. It was a wrench to send it away but I hope she will get lots of use and enjoyment and comfort from it.



All the pieces are labelled here so you can see how it all came together. I crocheted the edging - two rows of double crochet (single if you're in the US) using most of 100g in dark purple.

My family are patiently waiting to read this blog then scurry off to tell my aunty all about the lovely comments you've all written so don't be shy ;)

Blanket Squares

My mum and sister have sent me their completed squares for Aunty's blanket. My sister (green) has finished her three so my mum (pink) thinks that she should do some more to help her but I'm happy for her to work on my socks so that they'll be ready for Christmas.





My mum has sent me three squares. Two are the same but now I realise that by only showing you photos of two of them I am opening myself up to some upset Noblinmama-ness. hmmmm...



It's really interesting finding out more about how my mum and sister work. Both have ripped and reknitted squares which they weren't happy with, my sister several times. I think she has inherited some of my dad's* perfectionism.





I think all of the squares are wonderful and am very pleased with how all this is working out. We have set a deadline for my Aunty's birthday so I hope to have all squares knitted by the end of August and then I will have a week for blocking and seaming.

I'm going away again so see you later!

*That's both the parents mentioned - phew.

Keep plodding on

Just for the record, I do not hate my mother.

Another thing, I have not yet put the leaf pattern up for Bev.

Also, I had a comment from Noblinpa asking why he never gets mentioned.

The last few posts didn't get labelled so I think I'll go back and edit them.

I've developed a bad habit of giving knitted gifts away without getting proper photos of them. Shedir has been finished and posted and received so you won't be seeing that for a while. I'll try to get a modelled shot when I'm visiting Aunty again. I missed my chance this weekend but was very busy. I stayed with my sister and managed to get you some pictures of the hat I made my nephew for his 1st birthday. It is a Lucinda Guy pattern but I changed the yarn and colours as the ones in the book weren't available. It is adorable, especially when being wrenched off the young one's head.














I have made progress on my parts of Aunty's blanket. My sister and mum have aswell but they deserve their own post after I have blocked the squares which got very crumpled in my suitcase.






On one of the long sections, I knitted too far and had to undo several inches.




Last weekend, we saw the inlaws for an opera and a wedding. It was all very fun and tiring so then I slept late for a few days.




Noblin Sighting:

I had another run in with my mother

Now, I don't want you to think that this happens often but it seems to be increasingly related to knitting (see here for the previous episode). This time it revolved around a similar theme - me being frustrated at her lack of confidence in her knitting ability, her not being positive enough about something I was interested in.

My aunt is ill. I decided it would be a grand idea if we (me, my mum, my sisters and my dad and brother if they're interested) knitted her a blanket. My mum said that was fine if I organised it* so off I trotted full of enthusiasm and ideas. Probably a little too much enthusiasm. I sat down at the computer to look for yarn and then with my trusty stitch guide to look for stitch patterns. I sketched an idea for the layout of the blanket, picked all the stitches I liked the look of and thought looked fun to knit, went back to the computer to search for rough estimates of yarn requirements, drafted a plan on excel, coloured it in, ordered the yarn, changed the colours to what were in stock, scanned in the stitch patterns from the book, emailed everything to my mum and sisters and BLAM. Instant smack down from my mum.

I got quite huffy with her. It was all over the internet which probably contributed to me feeling huffy. The huffy feeling continued after we had stopped messaging so then I phoned my sister. My big sister, who I knew wouldn't indulge me but I hoped would sympathise. She was quite keen on the knitting and the stitch patterns but couldn't view them on her computer, it being old and doddery. She wasn't having any of my whinging and after a lovely chat and being told off for being over sensitive (Moi? Never!) I felt better and realised I too had some part to play in the situation and that my mother wasn't entirely at fault. In fact, perhaps I was more at fault than her.

I love stitch patterns. I love challenging myself with knitting. I get excited by lace and cables and entrelac and colourwork. I want to feel I'm stretching myself and I feel pleased at the end results. I fear not the knitting.

My mum loves to knit. She can knit bobbles and intarsia and jumpers and lace but mostly, she loves to knit. She doesn't constantly want to be taxed and I admit, neither do I. She doesn't desire to fight with cable needles to prove mastery of another stitch in the same way I do. So why do I keep trying to push her to be more like me? Shouldn't I let her find her own way? I feel like I'm encouraging her to feel more confident in her abilities but why is this important when she's having plenty of fun?

I also realise when she said I should organise the blanket* that I went too far. I didn't involve anyone else in the planning stages and then didn't explain myself when I emailed them. Organising it isn't the same as being a bully. Organising isn't an alternative to communicating. We're all going to talk about it at the weekend. I was ever so pleased when I received an email from my mum saying she had done some of her own stitch pattern research and had some ideas. I will let you all know how it pans out.

I ordered the yarn from Getknitted. They were very helpful and the next day I received this



containing this



11 hanks of Blue Sky Alpaca Dyed Cotton in Honeydew, Thistle, Shell, Orchid and Sky, and 2 balls of Rowan Calmer in Vintage. I have a long list of things I want to knit my Aunt including Shedir from Knitty. I've wanted to knit Shedir ever since I saw it, ever since I was challenged by the cables, ever since I heard of cabling without a cable needle, and ever since I heard of chemo caps and the realisation that I started knitting far too late to make one for my nan who died 18 months before that issue of Knitty was published.

This is the progree of Shedir



and here is the progress of the first panel of the blanket





See you all next week.

*My mum denies all knowledge of saying I had to organise the blanket but then that's mothers for you.