That is me and the Patchwork Kwilt, the patchwork quilt-inspired knitted blanket from Hell. The Patchwork Kwilt pattern was actually envisioned originally as a series of two 66x66-inch blankets: one, "Ice," featuring lovely cool hues of blue, lavender, gray and green; the second, "Fire," warm reds, golds, brown and oranges. Yes, folks, I admit, I am a Game of Thrones fan. Judge me as you will.
I should've known that the project was doomed from the start by naming it for the George R. R. Martin book series that may not be finished before he dies. Alas. Hindsight, y'all.
The "Ice" Kwilt began in 2014, when I was at the Georgia National Fair for 10 days, selling subscriptions to the Farmers and Consumers Market Bulletin (the job I had at the time). I needed a mindless project. I'd learned the year before that having something going on to catch peoples' attention drew them to you ... even if what you were doing had nothing to do with your booth! In my case, that would be knitting. Squares seemed the obvious answer. |
The knitting was easy. The mistake I made assuming I'd purchased enough yarn? Harder to swallow. I needed two additional skeins of each of those six extra colors, because those skeins were smaller and I did not get seven-to-eight squares out of each. Plus, I needed a color for the border! This blanket was breaking the bank. And my patience. But I refused to give up. Stitch by stitch, I slowly worked on the blanket whenever I had a spare moment and needed mindless knitting.
Enter 2016. The squares are done. Two sides of the border are done. I begin to lay the blanket out, because I swore to myself that I'd finish all active projects before I cast on any Christmas presents.
About that.
Six hours into stitching this blanket together and barely being halfway through, I had managed to take up most of our living room floor for a week, was so sore I could hardly walk for two days and to top it all off, my damn cats kept trying to burrow under the towels that were draped on top of the quilt (placed there, ironically, to keep the cats off the blanket).
I gave up and cast on my brother's Christmas present. We'll try again next week.