FO: NLCA

And here it is: The Noro Log Cabin Afghan!

I started this back in March and fairly quickly worked up all the very addictive squares. But then it took a while to plow through all the assembling, which involved miles and miles of garter stitch and almost as much grafting.

In the end, it was totally worth the trouble. The afghan is warm and colorful and lovely to curl up with.

I used 20 balls of Noro Yuzen--which is a wool/silk blend, labeled DK weight, but really a worsted--in 10 different colorways. I made the blocks using this tutorial, which was really easy. Then I picked up and knitted along the edges of the blocks and kitchenered them together to create strips. Then I picked up and knitted along the edges of the the strips and kitchenered them together to create a rectangle. (I used a different yarn for this, which I pulled from the stash.)

I should have made my strips narrower, since a) they ended up wider than the "logs" and b) I ran out of yarn before I could make the border as wide as I wanted. But calculating exactly how wide they needed to be to use all my yarn without running out too soon would have required...well...math. And I try to minimize the need for math in knitting, because, as I have proved time and again, math lies. I know there are those of you who disagree that math is inherently dishonest, and maybe even those who would suggest that I--myself--might in some way bear some responsibility for the way math has repeatedly failed to conform to my knitting reality, but I reject those arguments and repeat: math lies.

So, after much consideration, I decided to use the "ah, screw it" approach to making a border and just started single crocheting around and around the edge of the afghan until I ran out of yarn. Which, naturally, happened two feet before the end of a round. At that point, I extended the "ah, screw it" approach to its natural corollary, "ah, f*&! it!", ripped back to the end of the side (not all the way back to the beginning of the round, which would have made the border the same width on all sides but also narrower on three sides), and tied it off. I figure, no one will ever notice that one side is one row narrower than the other three, and I used up all but a few feet of my yarn.

Being familiar with the ways of Noro, I soaked this baby overnight in some water with a good dose of fabric softener, and it's now drying out on the deck. Since I've also finished Morgaine (modeled pics coming soon!), I am now without project on the needles! I will be remedying that situation in short order, as soon as I decide what I feel like knitting next. I am getting ready to start a new job in a formal office environment (more about that later), so I am trying to come up with a sweater I could wear in that setting. It's the sort of place you have to wear a suit every day. I was thinking a fitted shell or sweater for under a suit, but I been able to find any patterns I think would work. I'm not averse to designing my own, but I don't really have a vision for it. Any suggestions?

FO: Man Blankie

I finished the Feel Better Blanket a couple of days ago.


This was my first machine quilting project, and one of my first machine sewing projects ever, so be gentle.

If you look closely, you will see that there are literally hundreds of errors in both piecing and quilting, and I am quite certain that the experienced quilters among you are shuddering with horror at the way I resolved some of the many issues I encountered in making this.


For all that, I loved working on this project! I love, love, love the fabrics, which I got in the form of Freebird Charm Packs from Moda Fabrics. I did absolutely nothing fancy, just sewed the individual squares together as they pleased me.


The border is plain red cotton. I used a twin sized cotton quilt batt which I cut to the custom size of this quilt, and the backing is chocolate colored flannel to make it extra cozy.


I discovered that I really enjoy the feel of just sewing straight lines with my lovely old machine, and that playing with beautiful fabrics is just as wonderful as playing with beautiful yarns.


For the quilting, I winged it, ending up with an ad hoc plaid pattern. As you can see, I used contrasting dark brown quilting thread. I did this to tone down the bright colors a touch, since the KH declared them, "almost a little too cheerful." I think it worked well; I like the way the brown stands out against the bright fabrics, even though it makes every little quilting error jump out at you--and there are a lot of quilting errors.


I tried several methods to get the quilting to go smoothly. In the end, I found that I preferred using the original old edging foot that came with my 1962 Pfaff 360. I didn't like the even feed foot I bought, or the straight stitch foot, or the darning foot. But the edging foot has a guide that helped get the lines straight and even, or at least less wobbly and uneven than the other feet, and was smoother and quieter than the even feed foot.


To finish it, I cut off the extra batting and the wrapped the backing forward over the edge batting and folded the red edging backward over the batting and the backing and sewed it down by hand. (For the record, I do know how to make and attach bias binding, but I chose not to in this case.) As you can see, I'm no better at hand sewing than machine sewing, but at least I could do this part sitting on the sofa in front of the tv. I finished it off with a good machine wash and dry to make it all soft and crinkly.

The KH has barely let his "man blankie" out of his sight for the past two days. He carries it from the sofa to his upstairs office to our bed, depending on where he's hanging out. I have resisted calling him "Linus" because that be mistaken for criticism, when it fact it tickles and flatters me that he seems to love this blanket so much!

Noro Jag

Ah, Spring. The time when a knitter's fancy turns to thoughts of Noro...or is that just me?

I'm on another Noro jag. Happens every once in a while. Remember last year's must-have Noro Giant Granny Square? This year it's the Noro Log Cabin Blanket. The need to make one of these (Rav link) bit hard while I was in Lake Tahoe. And thanks to the internet, even though I couldn't make my intended pilgrimage to Jimmy Beans Wool in Reno (seems some of the males in my household don't see the necessity of driving two hours round trip to visit a yarn shop from which I can order yarn online in a matter of seconds--party poopers, all of them), I discovered that Noro Yuzen has recently been put on clearance by a number of my favorite yarn pushers...uh, suppliers. I ordered mine from WEBS here, but it's also on sale at Little Knits.

This is a round about way of explaining that I bought a blanket's worth of Noro last week. Wanna make somethin' of it?

And here's the current progress:

I started two days ago and have discovered, despite all the other projects on the needles, that these little squares are a lot like potato chips: I can't have just one. In fact, I'm not sure anything else is going to get done until I've turned my entire supply of ever-changing Noro colorways into log cabin squares.


(Don't mind the wonkiness. I haven't blocked any of them yet.)

I bought two hanks each of ten different colorways. Each hank makes one 11-inch square on size 7 needles at 18 sts/4 inches in garter. Don't be fooled by the gauge listed on Noro yarns. It's always wrong. I don't know whether yarn gauge is measured differently in Japan or whether it's just a Noro thing, but I find the yarn is always at least one size larger than listed; in other words, this "dk" weight yarn is really a worsted/aran weight yarn.

In case anyone is of a similar mind, these squares are wicked easy to make. After the first one, you don't need anything resembling a pattern to whip them out, and you may not even have to look at your hands, if you can resist staring at the color changes.

I worked this one sitting in Younger Son's academic awards ceremony today (honor roll-yay!).

He's the one on the far right. Congratulations, Goober!