Seascair Cushion Cover - Cast On!

Sunday night we watched football, so I cast on one of the Seascair cushions.  I can knit this without looking at it (too much) unlike the joining, which absolutely required my focused attention.  I have four skeins left, well not quite four skeins, as they were all underweight, and I had to use some of the blue skein to finish joining all of the squares.

I will knit one square from each of the skeins, and use the leftovers to finish the cushions - starting with the gray leftovers from the blanket.

Pattern:  Seascair Cushion Cover by Carol Feller

Yarn:  Blasta

Needle:  US 6 (4.0 mm)

Simplified Seascair Blanket - Blocks Done and Assembled!

This past Saturday I finished the last two blocks and blocked them.  I laid out the remaining blocks Saturday evening and started the assembly.  First you join the blocks into the columns, and then you join the columns, all of the joins are three needle bind-off, so pick up stitches and then bind them off.  For the columns you pick up along the edge of one block and then continue to pick up along the edge of the next, using the same needle and yarn.  I used a 32” circular needle for that, and had to pull a loop out where the two blocks met, but it worked great.  For joining the columns I had to use to two 40” circular needles, picking up the stitches of each column to join on one of the needles.  When joining the columns I did columns 1 and 2, and then 3 and 4, and then did the middle seam so that I always had the same amount of fabric on each needle.  The joining took 39 grams of yarn.  So far the blanket has taken 789 grams.  One thing I noted was that none of my skeins were the full 100 grams.  They were all underweight.

I have also sewn in most of my ends.  I left all the ends on the edges of the blanket because I am planning on working a border with whatever yarn I have left after working two cushions.  There is a matching cushion pattern that was part of the club, and I will be using that pattern.

Pattern:  Seascair Blanket by Carol Feller (mitered squares only)

Yarn:  Blasta

Needle:  US 6 (4.0 mm)

Simplified Seascair Blanket - Eighteen Blocks Done!

I have been working pretty consistently on my mitered squares and have completed eighteen.  I also started blocking them this past week.  I’ve been blocking four a day, until today, because I only had two completed that had not been blocked.  I’m working the last two blocks for the blanket.

I have been weighing everything to determine how much yarn I will have left over after completing the blanket - less whatever I use to join all the squares together.  The pattern has you pick up stitches and join blocks using three-needle bind-off.  I have a spreadsheet with stitch count and yarn usage so I can figure out how big I can make the pillows to use up the rest of the yarn.

I have my bag of leftovers from the blocks that I’ve already knit.  And the four full skeins all caked up.

Pattern:  Seascair Blanket by Carol Feller (mitered squares only)

Yarn:  Blasta

Needle:  US 6 (4.0 mm)

Simplified Seascair Blanket

Back in 2021 I joined Carol Feller’s Celtic Knit Club 2021.  It was during the COVID pandemic and I was working full time from home.  The club came with all of the yarn that you see above and four patterns, a blanket, a hat, a cowl, and mittens.  All of the projects were made from the same yarn - Blasta - a worsted weight yarn that is 60% Fine Irish Wool and 40% New Zealand Wool, and has 232 yards per 100 grams.  I started working on the blanket on May 10, 2021.  By June 10, 2021 I had two mitered squares.

The next update came on March 26, 2022, at which point I had five squares (you get two squares out of a skein).

The next update came a little quicker - on April 13, 2022, with six squares (finishing out the first three skeins).

With eight squares done by June 12, 2022.

And ten squares done by June 19, 2022.

And all fourteen squares done by September 5, 2022.  All of that 2022 progress actually came when I was back on-site and in the office at least three days a week because they made such good work knitting.

And then I got to the patterned squares that go in the center of the blanket, which is where I stalled out.  They just were not fun to knit.  The dark blue made seeing the pattern stitches difficult, and the cables in the yellow were just a pain to work.  At this point in my life I don’t have to do anything that I don’t enjoy (the perks of being retired), which brings us to the picture at the top.  After finishing up the Fika Shawl I was thinking about what to work on next, whether to cast on something new or work on finishing up one of my languishing works in progress.  I pulled out the two partially finished squares and pulled the pattern up on knitCompanion.  I knew that I did not want to keep working the patterned squares, and looking at the other projects in the club I realized that they used the same stitch patterns, so what was I going to do with all of that yarn?  I like the mitered squares, and they are fun to knit, and quick to work up, so I decided to just make mitered squares and when I have them all done I will assemble them however I want.  I’m thinking a blanket, and maybe a couple of pillows.

So I frogged the two partially finished squares and started knitting a mitered square with the yellow yarn.  To reclaim the kinky yarn I ran it through the steam from my tea kettle.  It worked a treat and didn’t take long at all.

Pattern:  Mitered squares from the Seascair Blanket by Carol Feller

Yarn:  Blasta

Needle:  US 6 (4.0 mm)

Fika Shawl - Finished!

Once I got into the groove of the pattern this worked up fairly quickly.  The only real set back was when I was blithely working the cable crosses and forgot to switch the direction on the second half of the shawl and didn’t realize my mistake until I had worked the wrong side row, and had to tink back a row and a half to fix them.  There was at least one other time when I started to do that on the second half but caught myself after the first one.  Other than that it was pretty smooth sailing, I even remembered all of the increases on the right side.  I did check my stitch count on a regular but not overly frequent basis to make sure I hadn’t inadvertently missed an increase.  The shawl ends with 1x1 ribbing, and the pattern says to work the ribbing until you have about 8 grams left and then bind off in pattern.  I quit a few grams earlier than that and cast off this past Wednesday evening and blocked it Thursday morning.

Blocking was pretty easy, although I didn’t force a straight line across the top.  That does mean you end up with a little fold at the back of the neck when you wear it, and really, this is more of a shawlette than a shawl.  I haven’t decided if I want to seam part of the front edges together and turn it into a cowl, or if I want to add some I-cord ties to the wing tips so I can tie them behind my back and wear it as a shrug.  It is very pretty, and very soft, with nice drape.

Pattern:  Fika Shawl by Inge-Lis Holst

Yarn:  Onling No. 4

Needle:  US 4 (3.5 mm)

Fika Shawl - Two and a half Sections Done!

Having finished my Floret socks I have been focusing on my Fika Shawl.  I made a spreadsheet to keep track of stitch counts and yarn usage so I can use as much of my yarn as possible.  The shawl pattern itself is very simple, so once it is established I don’t need to refer to the pattern instructions, all the important pieces of information are on my spreadsheet.  I have become more of a monogamous knitter since my retirement.

Pattern:  Fika Shawl by Inge-Lis Holst

Yarn:  Onling No. 4

Needle:  US 4 (3.5 mm)