Wednesday afternoon I headed for the airport to travel home. It was a crazy realization that “home” meant leaving the US and that I really did feel like I was going home.
A first for this trip – I took all of my originally scheduled flights. So of the eight different planes I took over three different legs of travel, only three were those I booked. Everything else got rerouted due to delays with the first flight. To be fair, Delta was pretty good about making the call early that there would be a delay, ensuring that I could call to update my tickets. I never arrived more than 45-60min later than originally planned. Pro-tip – if you get a notice that your first flight will be delayed and they will be rebooking your flights, don’t wait, call. The agent can help better meet your needs than their automated rebookings.
I got a decent bit of crafting done on the plane, with a start to my Ergane cowl (loving it so far) and some progress on TheEnabler’s next cowl:
But now that I’m home I’ve largely set these aside. TheEnabler’s cowl, with it’s simple repeat, will be my purse project. But I’ve decided it’s time to get serious about finising one of my major projects.
This yarn:
Is yards and yards (2,916 to be exact) of my handspun in the process of becoming a blanket:
And I’ve come to the realization that my optimism that it would “kinda get done eventually” if I just did a few rows here and there has given way to the realization that I need ot buckle down and focus on it. To that end, I have decided that I don’t get to knit anything else unless I’ve done at least 12 rows on the blanket that day or 24 rows over the past 2 days.
The yarn is all 2ply spun to about a fingering weight from a motley crew of different sheep assembled over multuple fiber festivals. Some of it was spun on my spinning wheel (a Kromski Sonata) and some was spun on my drop spindles. Basically, I think it’s a bit the knitters equivalent of a patchwork quilt, only the design is highly planned out.
The pattern is from Painted Desert by Carol Sunday, adapted from the original poncho to a blanket. Since I’m using handspun, I have been knitting it from the center out, allowing me to match the two sides as I go instead of trying to match one to the other later. I have periodically weighed the remaining yarn for each color and alterred my use of each in the stripes to adjust usage in the pattern if I’m using it up too slowely or too quickly.
As I’ve been working on it, I’ve actually enjoyed the process of adapting the color use as I go. Instead of just being an “out” for not spinning enough of some colors, it’s actually creating an interesting sense of an evolving pattern instead of the very structured and controlled pattern as originally written. There is a more organic feel which I think matches the homespun and varied textures of the yarns better.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m a bit behind on today’s goal and it’s getting late…