The FOlio: The Blue Sea Blanket
In the FOlio, I reflect on a finished knitting object and what the process of knitting it taught me.
Pattern : Blue Sea (Knitty link - free pattern!)
Designer: Kimberly Kalnoki (Ravelry store)
Yarn Used : Knit Picks Wool of the Andes Worsted in Lake Ice Heather, Chroma Twist Bulky in Weather Vane
Knit from : January 3, 2022 - February 7, 2024
Lesson: how to manage a knitting project over multiple years and long pauses and learn a new technique in the process.
The moment I saw Blue Sea in Knitty’s Deep Fall 2021 issue I knew I had to make it. I found the graphic element of the Japanese inspired wave design stunning and I had been hoping to make an extra blanket for our bed during the coldest part of winter. There were just a few problems:
I had never made anything with two-color brioche before (I had only made one brioche project at all, my Shinko hat)
It was going to require a pretty large investment in yarn (all previous blankets I’d made had been scrap blankets).
I knew from past experiences knitting with bulky and/or extremely warm yarn that there would only be a few months a year when it would be cold enough to really work on the blanket, and I didn’t think I’d get the blanket done in just a few months.
But I really, really wanted that blanket. Thus began one of the most carefully planned and managed knitting projects I have ever attempted.
Although the original Knitty pattern uses acrylic yarn, I really wanted to use wool as I intended to at least partially use it on my bed where I prefer natural fibers. After some thought and internet browsing I picked Knit Picks both for budget reasons and because I found myself intrigued by the idea of using Chroma Twist Bulky with its subtly shifting colors as the base color, with good old Wool of the Andes Worsted floating over the top. Since I did still want to get a little more brioche practice in, I put the two shades I had in mind on my wishlist and decided to wait for a good sale to knock the price of the total project down a bit more.
In the meantime, I knit my Presage hat, which taught me two-color brioche. I highly recommend making hats if you are interested in learning a new stitch pattern technique –they are small enough to start over if you mess up but give you enough repeats to get comfortable. Plus, if the hat doesn’t fit you in the end you can usually find someone to give it to.
Just after the New Year in 2022, Knit Picks had a sale on “winter” shades of yarn – which included the exact shades of light gray and blue I had picked out for my blanket. I ordered them along with a very long US 11 cable needle and got to work.
From the start, I knew I would probably end up pausing as soon as the weather got too warm, so I would need a way to keep track of my place when I stopped. I have used a very basic row counter app* on my phone for years – the best thing about it is that it allows you to start and save multiple projects at a time and also keeps track of repeats along with the row number. So I made sure to set up a counter for my blanket on this app from the beginning so I could always know my place.
*- I’d name the app but I’ve had it for so long that it is actually no longer available in the current app store, thankfully I’ve been able to just carry it from SIM card to SIM card when I’ve changed phones. However there’s lots of free row counter apps out there that offer similar functionality.
Like all two-color brioche patterns, you are essentially knitting two rows for every row of the pattern – you knit one color of a row, then return to the beginning of the same row and knit the second color before turning the work. In this particular pattern, I quickly realized that only the contrast color (light gray) RS rows changed stitch pattern significantly – the MC (blue) RS row as well as both rows on the WS were always knit basically the same. This made it a much quicker knit because I only had to check the pattern for the CC RS rows.
I also learned very quickly that it was a bad idea to leave my work if I hadn’t completely finished a row (both CC and MC knitted), because that didn’t get tracked on the row counter and it was easy to get confused about whether I was in the middle of a RS or WS row.
The tricky thing about the Blue Sea pattern is that you actually cast on the long side of the blanket and are working across the width. This means you have a LOT of stitches on your needles and the rows can take ages. As I knit through this I found myself setting a goal of completing just two rows every evening (one RS one WS) so as not to get completely burned out (and always be able to stop after completing a full row). I did have to tink back a few times to fix mistakes – and you do have to tink, not rip back because of all the yarn overs and slipped stitches – but at least you can tink both colors at the same time.
Yuna liked the blanket so much she couldn’t wait for me to finish it.
I worked on this blanket until about April of 2022, then put it away until about October. I maybe could have finished it in the winter of 2022/2023 except that we bought a house in November and moved halfway across the country in January 2023, so for about a month of prime winter knitting time the blanket was packed in a box. I worked on it until April of 2023 before picking it up in January of this year determined to finish it off.
And yes, the finished project is glorious:
I am so happy with the way this turned out. I’ll note that my gauge is way off on this pattern – although I’m usually a very tight knitter I’m starting to realize that I’m a much looser knitter in brioche. Thus midway through the second winter of work on this pattern I realized I was going to run out of gray yarn and I probably wasn’t going to get to the same number of repeats as the pattern called for anyway. (Luckily the gray yarn was still available at Knit Picks and didn’t look significantly different even though I couldn’t get the same dye lot.) Even though I only did 7 total repeats instead of 9, it’s considerably bigger (roughly 70 inches long when the pattern calls for a finished length of 64 inches). But it is lovely and cozy without being too heavy to move around. My husband noted it reminds him a bit of the 70s era open weave blankets he grew up with (which I suspect were crochet blankets, but I get what he’s saying). And most importantly, staff kitty Yuna absolutely loves it.
Yuna “helping” me weave in ends (and a nice view of the reverse side of the blanket.
Have you ever tackled a project that required you to practice a new technique? How do you manage projects when you know you’re going to want to pause them partway through? Let me know your tips in the comments!