Lizard Ridge Update #3

Here's another progress shot of Lizard Ridge. SOOOO CLOSE!!!!! 3 strips done, one more well on its way.

I'm starting to think about what color to use as a border. The downside of using as many different skeins of Kureyon as I could get is that there's not one single color that makes the most sense for a border. But it definitely needs a solid-color border to ground it. I'm kind of thinking that a dark green would be good -- there's a surprisingly large amount of green in this blanket -- but I could also see arguments for a medium-aqua. Or a medium/light gray, not so heavy?

Thoughts? Suggestions? Is there another color I should be considering? Help me, loyal readers! You're my only hope!

Lizard Ridge Update #2

Another plane ride, another Lizard Ridge strip begun.

I worked pretty furiously to get the second strip finished before I went on my Great Midwestern Tour 2011 (Des Moines, Grinnell, Iowa City, Madison, AND Milwaukee! With a drive through Dubuque for good measure! Wooo! Again with the exciting life!), but it just didn't happen. And I wasn't going to cart around that whole strip for just those final rows.

So I started a new strip on the plane leaving Burlington (cast on during take-off!), and knitted my way through the Midwest. (I did not knit while driving through the Iowa or Wisconsin countrysides, Mom. I was too busy looking out the window.) And after a week in the Midwest and another week home (where I mostly worked, and did very little knitting except when I saw some knitting gals one evening), I'm about 2/3 of the way through the third strip.

I am really digging how this is turning out. It doesn't look nearly as garish in person as it does on the computer, for one thing. But also, I am totally fascinated with the way the colors are changing in the Noro as it progresses. So cool! It's like every row is a new discovery. I know I've said that before, but it still feels true. I am starting to itch to work on something else (don't know what, but just to be done with the darn short-rows for a while), but I fear that if I take a break I won't pick it up again for a long time, and then I'll have 3/4 of a Lizard Ridge blanket sitting on the UFO pile. Dumb dumb dumb. Gotta push on. My fascination with the ever-changing colors will have to carry me through.

Doc really seems to think this blanket is for him. He's certainly making himself comfortable.




(Please tell me I'm not turning into that lady who posts a picture of her cat at the end of every freakin' post. I don't want to be that lady. I stopped reading her blog altogether because the cat pictures were that annoying. Nobody cares about your fancy-pants purebred whatsit cat as much as you do. This will have to be the last Doc picture for a while, because OMG you don't care about the upside-down kitty, and I should be able to keep it to myself.)

Lizard Ridge is SO COOL!

Okay, seriously? I knew that the Lizard Ridge blanket was going to be cool. But I had no way to conceive of how it was all going to come together. It's way awesome.

This progress shot is at about 40%, I'd say. There are five skeins of Kureyon per strip, and the ones shown in this photo are #3 and #4 on the second strip. Instead of knitting blocks of a single skein and then seaming them together (hello, I hate seaming, we know this about me), I'm just knitting with two skeins at a time and seeing what happens, until skein #5. That one gets doubled onto itself.

Anyway, it's super-cool, and constant discovery of the "what's the next stripe going to look like?" has me totally engaged and knitting like a madwoman. So much fun!

Also, there's been more travel lately, and it was very easy to throw the two starter skeins in my carry-on and cast on in the plane. Who knew a blanket could be good travel knitting? But it was. For a 3-day jaunt to Cleveland last week, it was just right.


Doc likes the blanket, too. He can't wait to see how it turns out.


(And yes, I'm doing the garter ridges modification. I knew you would ask.)

Startitis Strikes Again

Someday, this orderly-yet-haphazard collection of Kureyon is going to be the Lizard Ridge Blanket.

As of this writing, I've got 10% done. That's two skeins of 20. My hands already hurt.

(It may be the new Harmony Options needles that are making my hands hurt. I'm in denial, though, as Husband gave them to me for Christmas. To be fair, I picked them out in the first place. Also: they're PRETTY.)

Anyway, this is the order of how I'm going to knit these skeins. The finished product is, miraculously, not going to look anything like this photo. That is the amazing thing about Noro. I swear, those people are geniuses.