The Ron Weasley Blanket

Note: I am sure that a very clever prop designer created the blanket found on Ron Weasley's bed in the Harry Potter films. I am not that prop designer; I am merely a fan who had a lot of random yarn to use up. I was asked by a user on Ravelry to create a pattern page others could link to when making their own Ron Weasley blankets.

Materials:
A whole bunch of yarn in various exciting colors that knits to about 5 sts/10 rows per inch in garter stitch.
Appropriate needles

I would also suggest finding one or two good screenshots from the films to get a feel for the blanket. If you can't make these yourself, The Leaky Cauldron has a great screenshot database.

Guidelines for squares:
I found 7 inch squares looked the most authentic to me.
You'll want to knit some of your squares solid. The patterned squares should be striped patterns only, not stitch patterns. This is a garter stitch blanket.
Knit a few squares on the diagonal.
Include some heathered yarns, or some tweedy yarns.

Guidelines for finishing:
The squares in the original blanket are arranged so that the garter ridges are aligned alternating vertically and horizontally. Basically, you will always be stitching a cast-on or bind-off edge of one square to a row edge of another. Except for the diagonal squares, obviously.

startitis

It's not really the most creative of blog post titles, but last night between the hours of 9:00 and 10:00 I started four projects. There was the previously mentioned top-down cardigan, a pair of mittens for a friend, a scarf, and this hat (Ravelry link), which I have since finished. The scarf is probably going to get frogged, I don't really love it. Really, I don't love knitting scarves, but this past winter I noticed that while I have many lovely individual winter accessories, most of them don't really match. Hence, I have a vague summer goal of knitting hats, scarves, and mittens to match what I've already knit. We'll see what happens. So far I've only managed to produce another hat that doesn't match anything else I own.

are you a good knitter or a bad knitter?

The situation: Many months ago I finished knitting the second sock of a pair of Sidewinders. The sock has been languishing on its circular needle, waiting for me to suck it up and finish the never-ending final graft. Today, I decided I want to knit a top-down fingering weight cardigan without leaving the apartment for supplies.

The good knitter would take twenty minutes and finish the graft on the Sidewinders, especially since they're for my boyfriend's mother and she knows I'm knitting them.

The bad knitter would find a pair of straight needles in a close-enough size, transfer all the stitches, and carry on with the cardigan.

Today, I'm a bad knitter. Oops.

because I have updated my facebook status too many times

Let's skip all the nonsense about how I haven't blogged in forever and why, it's very boring. Right? Right.

The cat level has increased from one to three. Cat number two, Windsor, joined Sassy and I in January. Windsor enjoys climbing my curtains and clawing the carpet. Cat number three, Max, joined us in April. Max enjoys sitting in the bathtub and eating my yarn. And by eating I mean...eating. Literally. I can't leave yarn out anymore. Or toilet paper, for that matter.

My knitting has been all over the place. The only constant has been socks, and that's really just because they fit in my purse. I'm pretty sure the day I pack a complicated knitting project to work on during downtime at my job is the day we'll suddenly be so busy I won't have time to breathe, let alone knit. I feel my coworkers won't thank me for pushing it.

Today I went to the doctor for this monstrous sinus-thing that has been plaguing me in various forms and degrees since Easter. She gave me a prescription and recommended I also purchase the special sort of Sudafed that they keep behind the pharmacy counter and you have to sign for. And geez, did I have to sign for it. I figured they'd just card me to make sure I'm old enough to get myself addicted to the OTC medication of my choice, but no, they took my address and my driver's license number, and I probably signed away my soul and my first-born child too, but I was so out of it I stopped paying attention. I have drugs, I don't care.

wouldn't it be nice

If I could play Zelda and knit at the same time, my quality of life would skyrocket.

I would just like to know

Has anyone else ever spent four years working on an art degree, landed a full time job related to her major, and then lain awake at night thinking she should have been an accountant?

It's kind of stressing me out.

The knitting has been entertaining lately, though, although I am not currently interested in anything without a lace pattern in it. I have the pattern for the Inky-Dinky Spider Stole (that's a Ravelry link, for some reason the Fiddlesticks Knitting site does not want to load) and I think I'm going to start it soon, after my monstrous lace project from Victorian Lace Today is all finished.

Also, Christmas knitting? I don't even care. You have permission to laugh when this changes in two months.

This weekend, I'm going to Toronto to visit some friends, and I have been promised a trip to the yarn shop, although I haven't decided which yarn shop. Maybe we will go to many, because it is my birthday this weekend (Friday, actually), and shouldn't we go to yarn shops if it is my birthday? I think so. You should too.

did I tell you I moved to Ohio?

My place of employment makes up the work schedule for several weeks into the future. This is great for planning weekend trips, but kind of a bummer if you need a specific weekend off (it does, however, give you a lot of time to plan elaborate bribes in order to make other people give you their days off. Not that I would do that.). I am not sure what, exactly, led me to think about Rhinebeck, since I have never been, and I don't have any knitting friends, and I haven't really heard people out in blogland muttering about it yet, but it crossed my mind the other day. So, just out of curiosity, I looked it up, and what do you know? I have that weekend off work! I might go. It would be delicious.

Today was one of my days off this week, so I did what anyone else would do and stayed up too late last night designing a weird pair of colorwork mittens. I don't really have any yarn to knit them with, though, so I trolled Ravelry and bought the pattern for Bubbles (that's a Ravelry link, folks; my apologies if you're not a Raveler). I'm nearly finished with the first mitten and may just stay up and knit the second one too, I'm in that sort of mood, and I don't have to work tomorrow either.

At this point, I am painfully aware of the fact that this post would be way more entertaining with pictures. I'm going back to my mittens.

so apparently someone reads this

That's right, Toni in Florida, I'm looking at you!

Sadly, my digital camera has spent the past three months or so dying a slow and painful death, and as of right now it refuses to turn on even with fresh batteries in it, so I think that's a pretty good sign that it's not going to be helping out with the blog anymore. It really is too bad, because I have been knitting even though I haven't been blogging. Last month I finished the Bayerische socks that I started in January...of 2007. Heh... The truth is I hadn't knit so much as a stitch on them since March of 2007 until I picked them back up in July. At the moment I've been seeking out rather epic projects, just nothing with cables... Although, did you see the Bonnie sweater from the Twist Collective? Honestly, if I don't knit that sweater before Christmas I don't think there will be many reasons to keep living. That being said, I have as of this post purchased neither the pattern or the yarn, even though I could because...

... (I thought this would be an awesome place for a new paragraph) I'm all finished with university and managed to snag myself a full-time job somewhat related to my field of study. The contract I signed says I can't talk about it on my blog, though, so you'll have to use your imagination.

Today was my day off and I happened to drive by a Goodwill while I was running some errands, so I went in to see if there was anything exciting in the sweater section. While I was at school, I was really into finding wool sweaters at thrift stores and frogging them, and I thought that it was just to get yarn that I didn't have to sacrifice my grocery budget for, but now I realize...it's all the thrill of the hunt. In May, for example, I scored a men's large 100% Shetland wool sweater that gave me about a ton of fingering weight wool that is currently being knit into the Beginner's Sampler Shawl from Victorian Lace Today. Sadly I didn't find anything good today, but the selection of sweaters in August is probably not what it will be in October. So I will bide my time.

Right now, though, I have yarn to play with and movies to watch and a day off to cram as much knitting as possible into, so I shall sign off for now. Cheerio!