I've been tinkering around with old projects in the background lately, but the things I've finished are new projects, not old ones. I completed a knitted rug recently, using a pattern from Joelle Hoverson's Last-minute Knitted Gifts.
I've coveted this rug ever since I bought the book about five years ago, but was put off making it by the expense, as it uses more than a kilogram of wool. To make it semi-affordable, I bought the wool online from Bendigo Woollen Mills. It seemed like a bargain at the time ($12.50 for a 200 g ball), and even more so when I realised how far it goes. Each ball just knits on and on and on, and is equivalent in metreage to about seven ordinary 50 g balls. I know this because I substituted another company's yarn for one colour that wasn't quite right. I bought four 50 g balls, then had to buy three more. How Bendigo cram so many metres into the same weight of yarn I have no idea – but they do, and I was mightily impressed. The yarn I used is their 8-ply Luxury machine-washable wool, and it's lovely stuff – soft and easy to knit with.
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| The stripes are all the same width, even though they don't look it in the photo. The ombre effect is produced by knitting with two strands of wool together, and successively replacing one of them with the next colour. |
It's a slip-stitch pattern with only two rows, and is quite easy – until you make a mistake in one of the slipped stitches, in which case it's hard to work out how to fix it. There are a few fudges in this blanket, but I don't mind. I enjoyed making it, and it knitted up in less than two months, which is pretty good for so large a piece. I'm really pleased with it – it's soft and thick and plush, and I think it looks good. So good, in fact, that I've bought enough wool to make another one.
