In Which the Pirate Knits in the Truck.

(I’ve written this post in advance and scheduled it for while I’m away. I am not on the internet while on vacation.)

On the way back from landgrab weekend, I was able to put a few pattern repeats onto the feather and fan baby blanket. I like how it’s coming out so far. The color works well no matter what sex the baby is. Although the lace isn’t as open as it might be if I were working with a natural fiber, it’s showing the pattern well enough that I’m going to run with it for the rest of the blanket. It takes about ten minutes to do a row, four rows to the pattern repeat, and I have about 50 repeats to go. The blanket will be right around a meter square when it’s finished. I think that’s a good size for a baby. Besides, if it’s any larger I’ll go crazy knitting it.

As I knit, I thought about the lace afghan that my mom made over 30 years ago… in an acrylic yarn. It’s still on my parents’ living room couch today. Maybe it’s not that you can’t knit lace with acrylic after all. (I bet Mom’s afghan would have looked better in a natural fiber with some blocking, but it’s pretty awesome the way it is.)

I also realized why Janis kept telling me that the feather and fan pattern is easily memorized, and that she can have a conversation right through knitting on it – it’s because it’s a lot less complicated than the one used in the Ostrich Plumes stitch pattern. Feather and Fan is (k2tog) 3x, (yo, k1) 6x, (k2tog) 3x. Ostrich Plumes is (ssk) twice, (sl2, k1, p2sso), (k2tog) twice, (yo, k1) five times, yo. It’s those “pass two slipped stitches over” that take my concentration every time, plus the tiny thin yarn that never seems to move the way I want it to. The blanket is so much easier than the scarf!