This isn’t really as epically big as I was hoping—it’s epically wide, about ten feet wide, which is, on the whole, perhaps unnecessarily wide—but it is Big Enough. It turns out that one unraveled sweater’s worth of DK-weight wool isn’t really enough yarn to make anything epically big, but the idea of the giant half-blanket is still with me, and I will definitely be revisiting it.
So this is just a regular-sized wrap, but that’s okay with me. And, you know, at this point it was a free project, recycled as it was, which always makes me extra happy.
Here’s my recipe for this thing, in case you’re interested: Beginning at the center back point of the triangle and using the main color—my yarn is Kathmandu DK, and that color is some kind of desert sand-ish color, a tweedy warm beige—I cast on 2 stitches. Then, working back and forth in stockinette stitch, I increased one stitch at both ends of every row using kfb, and just kept doing that, with the rows getting longer and longer, until the yarn had almost run out. Then I worked a couple rows of garter stitch, in an attempt to ward off the inevitable curling at the top edge. I bound off the top edge in the last of the sand-colored yarn, with just inches leftover. The main triangle part was easy, and didn’t take any time at all, and I could do other things while I worked, which was probably why it went so quickly.
Then, feeling overly optimistic about yarn quantities, and switching to garter stitch, I picked up stitches around the bottom edge with the lighter of the two purples, packing them tightly along a ridiculously patched-together length of Denise interchangeable circular needle. On the second row, I doubled the stitches by kfb every stitch. Holy carpal tunnel. It was about 700 stitches, point to point, and I increased by two stitches in every row at the center point only, which, looking at the above photo, seems like too much. Next time, I’d only increase every other row, which should keep it from jutting out like a bad miter. I didn’t work any increases at the side points on the ruffle edge.
The bind off took an hour, and I ran out of yarn less than halfway across it. (Why did I think one little ball would make a big ruffle? This isn’t my first rodeo!) I scavenged some scraps of worsted wool in kind of a grape color, and finished the bind off—you can see it, but as it kind of continues the ombre gradient thing already happening in the ruffle, it isn’t bugging me.
I’m glad to have this finished, since it appears to be monsoon season here in New York. Will it ever stop raining? I’m about to start sprouting moss.
All the rain is making the garden so lush. It feels tropical and soggy, but the vegetables are huge.
The doctor picked a salad for lunch. I love summer.
