First Square!
My first square is done! It starts on 70 stitches, with the dark color claret heather, and the second cloud. It measures about 8 inches to each side. So if the squares are all like this, the afghan (should I ever actually finish it) will be 64" x 80", which is about queen sized and quite respectable. =D
PICTURE HERE
Note that the tiny purple square which is the last purple stripe looks a lot smaller than the first stripe. This is because it is: it is only 4 ridges. The actual directions I will have per stripe are at the end of this post. I'm not sure I'll use this square, but I'll keep it as my "gauge swatch." The color combination definitely looks nice; I'm going to make another square like this later.
I'm joining new colors by splicing the yarn (doing the thing where you knit to the end, undo a few stitches (and mark the spot where you ended) then splice together and keep knitting. It actually doesn't take that long, and it looks pretty good. (A bit of the time the lighter yarn got a bit discolored, but I think that in the long run that won't be that much of an issue. You couldn't really tell on the knitted part, anyway.) I was thinking of doing this very scientifically, so that I could prepare the yarn ahead of time. So I propose to measure the weight of the swatch and the weight of a few yards of the yarn. In addition, I know the number of stitches in each swatch, so I should be able to figure out exactly how much yardage each bit of the swatch takes. (Should measure it by weight, and in theory.)
I should also make sure to leave a set number of inches (3? 4?) for the tail at the beginning, so that I can make correctly spliced yarn ahead of time. =) That'll make it better for travel knitting, which was the idea behind this project anyway.
Directions for square:
Provisionally cast on 35 stitches twice (so that each half can be unzipped independently). We start with a RS row; all WS rows are knit. Knit two rows straight. k 34, k2tog twice, k34. Continue decreasing twice in the center of each square on each RS row, switching colors every 10 rows until 2 stitches remain. The last WS row is just a ssk. There should be 7 stripes, 4 dark and 3 light.
PICTURE HERE
Note that the tiny purple square which is the last purple stripe looks a lot smaller than the first stripe. This is because it is: it is only 4 ridges. The actual directions I will have per stripe are at the end of this post. I'm not sure I'll use this square, but I'll keep it as my "gauge swatch." The color combination definitely looks nice; I'm going to make another square like this later.
I'm joining new colors by splicing the yarn (doing the thing where you knit to the end, undo a few stitches (and mark the spot where you ended) then splice together and keep knitting. It actually doesn't take that long, and it looks pretty good. (A bit of the time the lighter yarn got a bit discolored, but I think that in the long run that won't be that much of an issue. You couldn't really tell on the knitted part, anyway.) I was thinking of doing this very scientifically, so that I could prepare the yarn ahead of time. So I propose to measure the weight of the swatch and the weight of a few yards of the yarn. In addition, I know the number of stitches in each swatch, so I should be able to figure out exactly how much yardage each bit of the swatch takes. (Should measure it by weight, and in theory.)
I should also make sure to leave a set number of inches (3? 4?) for the tail at the beginning, so that I can make correctly spliced yarn ahead of time. =) That'll make it better for travel knitting, which was the idea behind this project anyway.
Directions for square:
Provisionally cast on 35 stitches twice (so that each half can be unzipped independently). We start with a RS row; all WS rows are knit. Knit two rows straight. k 34, k2tog twice, k34. Continue decreasing twice in the center of each square on each RS row, switching colors every 10 rows until 2 stitches remain. The last WS row is just a ssk. There should be 7 stripes, 4 dark and 3 light.
posted by Inna at
1:39 AM
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