Pattern: Square Shawl from Elizabeth Zimmerman's Knitters Almanac
Yarn: Rowan Big Wool, Rowan Little Big Wool (501 Pink, 507 Brown, 511 Green, 512 Blue), Rowan Biggie Print, other oddments of Rowan chunky wools
Needles:10mm bamboo DPNs, 10mm Addi Circulars (1 x 90cm cable, 2 x 1m cable), 10mm Inox circular (80cm cable)
Cast on: October 2010
Cast off: April 2011
This project had been percolating for a while before I cast on. I had a bunch of chunky yarn remnants from my early knitting projects including a sweaters worth of yarn that I reclaimed from a very unflattering FO! I bought some additional yarn to make mittens for Christmas 2009 knowing that the remnants would be added to this project.
I used the Square Shawl pattern from EZ's Knitter's Almanac. I decided not to add any kind of lace or cable pattern but to just stick with stripes. I didn't plan the sequence of stripes but just looked at what I had when each ball ran out and decided then whether to change colours or knit another ball of the same colour. I kept an eye on the amounts I had, using the small quantities early on. I only set myself 1 rule and that was that each colour had to do a full round. The stripes are different widths depending upon the amounts I had of each colour and what had fallen before the current stripe. I tried to mix up wide and narrow stripes to keep the irregular look. I had to rip a few rows at one point as I had overestimated the amount of the bright blue I had and it ran out midway around. It's a great pattern, and the circular cast on is pretty nifty (it did take me a few goes as I'm rubbish with a crochet hook).
This was a bit of a monster knitting project and by the end I was working with 4 large circular needles and knitting sat on my bed as I couldn't wrangle the project whilst sat in a chair! It did keep me warm while knitting it and I had to keep fighting the urge to stop knitting and take a nap. A blanket (or blankets) are a necessity at home as the heating is only turned on for a few days over Christmas each year and this is living up to expectations on the toastyness front. Which makes me very happy. I cheated a little (a lot!) and only wove in the ends that were close to the edge or the corner shaping (don't tell anyone will you?) and would show from the front (there were an awful lot of ends to weave in after all).
Oh, I should probably mention that the blanket comfortably covers my double bed (I think it would happily cover a king size). Definitely a Big Fat Bed Blanket!
