Crocus Done!

 I finished and blocked my Crocus Blanket last night and am pleased as punch with it!  This pattern came from the book My Grandmother's Knitting.  Over the Christmas/New Year holiday, I discovered the fabulous closeout sales from WEBS and found the yarn first and then chose a suitable pattern. 

 The yarn was a wool/silk/cashmere blend from Zen Garden and even on sale, I paid $27/skein and used just over 3 skeins for the blanket.  It is a lovely soft fingering weight yarn and I used US 3 needles so you can imagine the work was slow going!  The blanket is 165 stitches wide and you start with 16 rows of garter stitch.  No problem there but it took almost 2 hours to do those 16 rows and then I screwed up on the very first 2 rows of the lace pattern and had to rip it all out.  I have never been more ready to quit something but I'd paid top dollar for the yarn.  I mustered my patience and started again.

 This was some fussy knitting but so worth it!  I stopped to count my stitches after each pattern repeat and kept track of each section with stitch markers.  This was not TV knitting and I had to really be mindful of watch I was watching or listening to because the work required all my wits!  I worked on the last big sections of it in the bowling alley watching Dave bowl.  The yarn is kettle dyed a pale yellow with some slightly darker mustard mottles.  Here you can kind of see some of the mottling.  Gorgeous.

I really feel accomplished as a knitter after making this!  When I was folding and arranging it for the pictures, I was reminded of the already knit lace shawls we bought in Russia.  I'm not comparing this to Orenburg lace by any means, but I made this!  Years ago I bought a pattern and yarn for a Shetland shawl IN Shetland in the hopes that some day I will be accomplished enough to knit it and I feel like I'm getting closer!  I love that you learn and become more experienced with each project tackled in knitting.  This will keep a baby very warm some day but my heart will bleed the first time it gets pooped on!