I’m on a mission, a mission to finish as many of those lingering WIPs as possible over the next month. First up is my Attic24 Rainbow Raindrops Cushion (free cushion tutorial here and stitch pattern here).
Now this is a pretty quick project to hook up, especially in chunky weight yarn,so I have no explanation as to why it’s taken me so long to finish it except… oh look pretty yarn! I wonder if that would be enough to make a shawl… I could just have a quick look on Ravelry… What do you mean it’s Thursday today?
FOCUS!
If you’ve seen Attic24’s pictures you might notice that in order to get the trickling raindrops effect the stripes should be displayed horizontally, but that didn’t look quite right with mine, as it came out, um, less than square! Partly this was because I wanted the button band to continue the rainbow stripes pattern on the back.
I love those rainbow buttons! To be honest, they steal all my attention away from the simple but effective stitch pattern.
I bought the yarn and the buttons as a pack from Woolwareouse.co.uk which worked out to be a good deal, but my only criticism is this the “yellow” in the rainbow is actually Camel and more of a beige colour. Even though Stylecraft has expanded their range of shades available in aran and chunky weight in the Special acrylic, there still isn’t a warm, sunny yellow suitable for a cheerful rainbow. In their Special DK they have four shades of yellow, and either Sunshine or Citron would be perfect for a rainbow colour scheme! Sadly, if you want a bright yellow in a heavier weight yarn it would be a case of holding two strands of DK together. 😦
Talking of rainbows and stripes (and Stylecraft Special DK too for that matter), one of my other ongoing WIPs is my Granny Stripe blanket. I’m up to the fifth repeat of the random 17 colour pattern. I’m trying to make each repeat completely different, with no two colours next to each other more than once. It worked on the first four blocks of 17, but it’s getting away from me a bit now!
My other blanket WIP is the knitted border I’m knitting in strips to go around the edge of my oldest WIP, a patchwork blanket I started in my teens! (The blanket is the one on the back of the sofa in the pictures of the cushion at the top of this post.)
This border has been great for using up odds and ends of DK acrylic from my stash, and the garter stitch is delightfully mindless for when I’m feeling, well, mindless! It’s good practice for knitting without looking at what I’m doing, I skill I plan to master!
I’ve probably got another block of 17 stripes left to go on the Granny Stripe blanket, and then another strip and a half to do of the knitted border… and then it’s time to dig out another WIP from the pile!
Wish me luck!
Beth 🙂
A wonderful colourful post! I especially like your granny stripe blanket!
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Thanks! It’s that time of year when I have to surround myself with colour to keep me sane! ☺
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That’s a wonderful amount of colour to surround yourself with 🙂 Great dob working oj those WIPs 🙂
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Certainly helps with the winter blues! 🙂
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Gorgeous happy projects. I completely recognise the oh look at this yarn, what shall I make syndrome!
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Swore not to order any yarn until I finish some projects and deplete my stash a bit. Except those 8 balls of yarn I just ordered… but I NEEDED those!
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Of course you did. Like I needed the Countess Ablaze skein which turned up yesterday. It’s glorious but I don’t know what I’m going to do with it! I’ve found a shawl on Ravelry (hahahahaha) that I want to make called The Great Divide – someone I follow on Instagram just made it and as my niece (who is 9 and very cool) wears the lace shawl I made her for Christmas every time she isn’t in school uniform, it felt like something I could make for her. I’m tempted to see if there is a lace shawl for 500m I could make in the Countess Ablaze. After all, I’ve already wound it into a ball…! Got any recommendations?
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Ohh! I like that pattern (just looked it up!) I have 30 shawls bookmarked on Ravelry at the moment! The only ones I’ve actually knitted are the Rosalie Shawl by Sharon Jane and LaLa’s Simple Shawl by Laura Linneman, and I wear the LaLa one loads! 🙂
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I admire your gusto for finishing off WIPs! It must be very satisfying to see things coming together at last, especially the blanket from your teens!
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Gusto sounds a bit to cheerful! Mostly it’s just grim determination! 🙂
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I love your pillow! Those are my kind of colors! 🙂 Your other projects are also vibrant and cheerful. A very wonderful and enjoyable post to look at with this crummy weather.
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It’s squishy too! But that’s harder to convey in pictures! 🙂
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It’s an interesting mathematical question you pose there about not having any two colours next to each other more than once. I can’t work out how to calculate how many repeats you could have except that it can’t be more than eight. Having difficulty finding more than three so you are up on me! I am quite interested because of I am starting to think of planning a stripey granny type blanket with 15-17 colours.
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It Was made harder by avoiding putting the very darkest colours together, especially the red and the plum. There is probably a website with the facility to let you plan it all out in advance… but where’s the fun in that? 😊
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