One of the things I see most while kicking around craft groups is the dreaded never ending WIPs. Everyone has them, unless they are incredibly organised and never distracted, which is not me. Not by a long shot! I’m exactly the opposite of that, in fact!
I see a lot of makers talking about how they have all these WIPs, because they get distracted and excited about new designs that pop up, and the exact same thing can happen to designers! This blanket design is a perfect example of what I call Designer WIP-itis, and the main symptom is habitually being distracted by new ideas or opportunities.
This blanket idea first came into my head not long after the Stone Washed / River Washed packs were released, so if you are familiar, you’ll realise just how long ago that was. In fact, I took this WIP to our Scheepjes Blogger meet up in 2018!
So what happened? Life, life happened. Also, some cool opportunities for publications, which obviously had to take priority due to deadlines and obligations. Every time I’d settle in to work on this one, something would pop up, the bag would get tucked into a corner somewhere until the next time I had free time and thought “Yeah, I really should get cracking with that!”. I also decided part way through, that I wanted to make it in regular Stone Washed / River Washed rather than the XL version, so I started all over from the beginning. Honestly, I’m pretty sure this will be the easiest blanket to ever take this amount of time! Are there records for these kinds of things, I wonder? I could really use a win on this one, people!
Even as I type this, the blanket isn’t finished. I have worked out the details, have testers working on it, and am making the push to get it finalised. Still, I’m almost embarrassed to say that it isn’t finished yet. I’m trying really hard to not get distracted and hold off any other things that come up because – so help me – this blanket is getting released!
(Full disclosure: I had to leave this post as a draft while I went away to The Netherlands for a few days, and in that time something else came up that I have to work on before I can get back to the blanket. Oops!! What is it they say about roads being paved with good intentions?! You can blame Carmen and her new Cosy Moments MAL!)
Here’s what I can tell you about the blanket in the meantime. It’s made of very easy knitted squares, using the newer colour pack of 58 colours of Stone Washed and River Washed yarn together with Moonstone, as seen above in the photo. The first photo shows the original pack with only 50 colours but I used 50g balls to create mini balls for the additional new colours that were missing from mine, to make the most of the new colour packs. The square allows for quite a lot of possible arrangements but I have settled on one arrangement that I really like. I will give the information for later, as well as how to make it with regular 50g balls of the colours of your choice, if you don’t have or want the colour pack.
I don’t have all of the final details just yet as I haven’t started joining, so I am not able to give the final counts on yarn amount, but I will be back soon!
1x Scheepjes Stone Washed / River Washed Colour Pack (newer pack with 58 colours)
11x Scheepjes Stone Washed in Moonstone (801)
The pattern will also be possible with your choice of colours in 50g balls. That will be a bit easier for you to decide once I have the proper materials and photos together to show the layout (which I’m waiting to make sure my testers are all down with and that it works out ok before I share that bit). For now, I just wanted to give you all a bit of a peek of what’s been up. Oh, and also to put this in writing so it’s out there and I don’t slack or set it aside again because something else has come up! Uh, except for this one recent thing, I mean.
Honestly, one day I am going to get truly organised and then the knitting world won’t know what hit it! At least that’s what I tell myself. Back soon!
Where To Buy
UK and International buyers will find Stone Washed / River Washed yarns at Woolwarehouse and Black Sheep Wools.
Canadian and International buyers have a great option with Knotty House.
Those of you in the Netherlands can find all you need at Caro’s Atelier.
You can also ask your preferred Scheepjes retailer or find a shop near you!
This post contains affiliate links. This is a way for you to support Canadutch and me as a designer. It is no extra cost to you, but if you shop via one of these links, I get a small percentage of the sale!
