9.22.09 The circular cast on for the middle was fiddly and drove me bananas, primarily because I’d never done anything like it before. I finally discovered the easiest way for me to manage it was, once I had transferred stitches to DPNs, to lay the needles on the dining room table and knit without picking them up - the needles didn’t slide out of the stitches, I didn’t knit them out of order like I did the first time, and it only took a couple of rounds for things to get stable enough that I could pick up the needles normally.

Then I managed to completely fail to read the instructions and had to restart about 6 times. Good news: I got really good at that circular cast on. I am now successfully working my way through Chart D.

11/12/2009 Am on chart G. I am both awed at its size and concerned that it won’t be big enough for a blanket. Trying to have faith in the powers of blocking.

The edging? It takes forever. And by the time you get to it, the project is too big to carry around with you, so there’s no sneaking in a repeat while you wait at the bank. But then I ended up hanging out at my in-laws’ for an evening and knocked out nearly the entire thing.

Blocking required a trip to my parents’ house to use my mom’s sewing room floor. Luckily, she was more than willing to help me pin it out.

It blocked out to nearly 65 inches in diameter, but sprang back once unpinned to be about 60 inches. Not quite big enough to snuggle under, which was my original goal, but enough to tuck around legs and chilly feet, which will still do nicely.