Saturday Sky and Enchanted Cottage Blanket

Another overcast, cold Saturday.

We did have some nice days during the week. And, we also had another snowfall, this one more winterlike than the previous two complete with whiteouts. (Whiteouts are when it's snowing so hard you can't see the road to drive.)

Notice that the leaves are still on the oak trees. We have many many oak trees on our wooded property, so many that I've never counted them. Their leaves turn brown in the autumn and hang on until almost spring. They will be waiting in soggy piles on the ground for me in the spring.

The oak leaves take three years to decompose in a compost pile unless they are chopped up. The oaks also drop acorns hard enough to dent whatever is under the tree, including my head.

If I ever buy another wooded property, it will be Beech/Maple. The maple trees turn beautiful colors in the fall, (usually) drop their leaves before the first snowfall, and maple leaves make wonderful compost over one wintering.


Pattern: Enchanted Cottage from Barbara Walker's Second Treasury of Knitting Patterns in the middle of made up border

Yarn: Utopia worsted weight. 100% acrylic

Color: Cream

Needles: Addi Turbo #7

Gauge: About 5 stitches/inch. Don't really care. It's a blanket.

Remember this problem blanket I'm knitting for the Patternworks Project Linus contest?

When I received the additional three skeins of cream Utopia from Patternworks, they were not the same dyelot as the two I used to start the blanket. That was not a surprise since I received no hint that they were going to try and match the dyelot.

Like any mature knitter would do, I flung them in a corner and snarled at them for several weeks.

Last week I hauled the blanket out and started knitting. If I strain my eyes, I can see where the new dyelot starts.

80% of the time, I think noone will ever notice except me because I know it's there. 20% of the time, I think I really don't want to donate a blanket that isn't as nice as it could be because the dyelot changed.

During the 80% of the time I think the blanket is OK, I've been knitting on it. It's almost done.

On a more positive note, I like the pattern and would knit it again in a washable wool blend or superwash wool of all the same dyelot.

I'm not going to write up the pattern in detail, but when the blanket is done I will write up general instructions. If you want to knit it, you will need to get the Enchanted Cottage part from the Barbara Walker book.