It's Getting Bigger!

My little Virus Blanket made of scraps is moving right along!  It's just eating up these leftovers and I'm really happy with the way it looks.  Working in fingering weight scraps means it's not growing very quickly, but this wasn't started as a project I need to finish quickly.  I started it to get sock leftovers under control and have something pretty when I'm done.  The pattern is easy to work (the video included with the free pattern is very helpful for clearing up anything that isn't quite clear in the written pattern), and easy to memorize.  Since I'm working with leftovers, I just join the next color wherever the previous color runs out.  As I've got kind of a fade going, it's not super obvious where I switch, and I'm able to use every inch of my yarns. 

Since I last blogged about this project, I've added Three Irish Girls Adorn Luxe in My Cherie Amour and I'm now crocheting with Farmer's Daughter Fibers Rocky Mountain Purls in Strawberry Shortcake. I've got two more yarns planned for this, and I might or might not use a darker color for the very end, just so the edges aren't white, but I haven't decided yet.

Have a great weekend, and stay hydrated! 

A New Scrap Blanket

Fresh off the high of finishing my Button Box Throw, I immediately wanted to keep using those scraps!  This time around I decided to use a crochet pattern worked from the center out - The Virus Blanket.  Once again I got out my leftover partial balls and little bits of superwash fingering yarns and put them into a kind of fade.  And this is the beginning! (It's actually, part way through a round, which is why one side of the square looks different from the other side - I had to get a photograph while the light was good.)

I'm still on the first color, but I'm going to be changing colors either this round or the next.  I have made a virus blanket before. (I made one in 2020 for Mr. Noodle when he came to live with us, then he turned out to love wool too much, so he has to be supervised with it.)  I remembered enjoying making it, and I thought it would be a pretty way to use up some leftovers that were floating around in bags, tangling up with each other.  I will admit that getting started this time was a bit of a struggle, but I'm sorted now, and have the repeat memorized so I can work without the pattern.  The pattern itself is free, but the written pattern is a little confusing (at least to me).  Fortunately, the designer also has a video, so by referring to the video where the written directions were confusing me, I've got it figured out!  According to notes in some other projects, I'm not the only one who needed the video to clear up some confusion.

Again, I have no definite plans for this blanket, other than turning yarn scraps into something usable.  I'll keep going until I have run out of this set of scraps or when I decide the blanket is big enough.  Big Enough is something to be decided when I get there!

Since I've been having so much fun using up yarn scraps, I noticed some fabric scraps sitting around the sewing room.  I'll show you the fabric plan later this week!  (Yep, I'm currently a scrap busting machine!) 

The Button Box Throw

Last November I started knitting the Button Box Throw.  It was part of the Knitvent 2026 collection (but it's now available by itself), and I thought it would be great for using up leftover sock yarns.  It was!  I grabbed a few of my blue green multicolored leftovers and figured out a kind of fade and got started.  I also decided to make the eyelet sections in white.   The pattern itself has directions for color changes and is built around the idea of using a set of advent mini skeins.  Obviously, my scraps didn't work out into perfectly portioned amounts, so I just knit through the fade with each color until I ran out.  I dropped a white eyelet section at the same spacing as the pattern, but otherwise I just kept on with the colors.  

Once I figured out my plan, the actual knitting was easy and didn't require a lot of brain bandwidth.  It was an excellent project to pick up and put down, perfect for working through the holidays, and it did eat up some stash.  The finished throw is a smallish blanket (32 inches square), that has no definite plan, but it's very soft and lightweight (being entirely made of fingering weight yarns).  As I was finishing it, I realized I wanted to keep working through some more sock leftovers, so I've pulled some more yarns, and chosen another center out pattern.  This second one is crochet and I'll show you next week!