2012-03-26: Started the square ten stitch blanket. I altered the starting sequence by starting my first mitered square on cast on. I repeated 2 more mitered squares and then began knitting per the pattern directions. I am connecting my new row to the blanket with a k2tog to create a ridge. The third picture from the bottom shows this join.

Ripped back to end of third mitered square. I didn’t like how the ridge was forming (SL1 K8 SL1 PU1 K2tog the SL & PU stitch). It was too loose and inconsistent. I’m now going to use: SL1 K8 SL1 PU1 PSSO.

2012-03-27: Ripped back a second time to the end of the third mitered square. While “SL1 K8 SL1 PU1 PSSO” is better, it doesn’t address the really important stitch. What I will be doing now is : “RS: WYIF SL1, K8, SL1 pwise, PU1, PSSO, turn; WS: WYIF SL1 pwise, bring yarn around front of slipped stitch and move to the back between the slipped stitch and the next stitch, K9, turn”, etc. This creates a nice “chain” join.

2012-04-17: Completed 3rd round. Color is now into orange.

2012-05-27: Completed 4th round and I’m into the purple.

2013-03-12: Finally completed round 5. I’ve been knitting rows here and there, but I made a concentrated effort to finish this round. Knitted work weights 80 grams, including needles and is 15 1/4” square.

2014-08-19: I can’t believe I’ve been avoiding this for over a year. Complete Side 1, round 6.

2014-08-20: Complete sides 2 & 3, round 6.

2014-08-21: Complete round 6. Green has finally shown up!

2014-08-23: Complete round 7.

2014-08-26: Complete ball 1; complete round 8.

2014-08-29: Complete round 9.

2014-09-01: Complete round 10.

2014-09-08: Complete round 11. Its getting harder to get a photograph of this thing.

2014-09-14: Complete round 12. Its really annoying that the colors are aligning up. Its slowly clearing up, but I’m going to have some pooling.

2016-03-30: Finally back to working on this. I need to make a concerted effort to knit at least 10 to 20 garter ridges per day. I have completed round 13. Its getting really hard to get pictures. My blanket dimensions are 38” x 38”.

2016-04-04: Complete round 14; no more pictures- its getting too big.

2016-04-05: Finish the third skein of EX.

2016-04-12: Finish round 15.

2016-04-15: My upper forearm is hurting; I think from the blanket weight, so I’m taking a week or 2 off from knitting on the blanket to see if that helps.

Summary

• Starting weight: 294 grams on my scale, then I bought 5 more skeins and switched to those skeins. My 2 original skeins are not enough!

• Changed start of blanket as follows: Cast on 10 stitches. Immediately start a corner turn. On completion of first corner turn, start a second corner turn. On completion of second corner turn, start a third corner turn. Starting from the bottom, the first picture is after the second corner turn. The second picture is after the third corner turn.

• PU1 as follows: Stick needle through the gap between ridges, from front to back, picking up the stitch as if to knit.

• Pictures 3, 4 & 5 show my different attempts at joining. Picture 3 is the original attempt. Picture 4 is my second attempt. It is similar to attempt 1, but more consistent. Picture 5 is the third and hopefully final attempt.

• I’m using my knitting backwards skills on this one; well, actually I’m purling backwards. This way I don’t have to be constantly turning the blanket. I intermix this technique with standard turning. I’m not very fast purling backwards. (I gave up on this.)

• My way of knitting a side row: RS: WYIF SL1, K8, SL1 pwise, PU1, PSSO, turn; WS: WYIF SL1 pwise, bring yarn around front of slipped stitch and move to the back between the slipped stitch and the next stitch, K9, turn.

Project Stats

• 36 grams taken from first skein

• New skeins are 150 grams. I’ll calculate the old ones at 150 grams as well. This means I have 1050 grams or 50-60 grams every 5%.

• 4.37 yards per gram; needles weigh 6.2 grams; total grams 1050

• Total gram’s used after round:
  Round 5: 73.8 gr; 322.5 yards
  Round 6: 106.3 gr; 464.5 yards; 17 3/4” across; 10% yarn used
  Round 7: 140.6 gr; 614.4 yards; 20 5/8” x 20 5/8”; 13% yarn used
  Round 8: 182.6 gr; 797.0 yards; 23 1/8” x 23 1/4”; 17% yarn used.
  Round 9: 226.8 gr; 991.1 yards; 26 1/8” x 26 1/8”; 22 % yarn used
  Round 10: 276.5 gr; 1208.3 yards; 29 3/8” x 29 3/8” 26% used
  Round 11: 331.1 gr; 1446.907 yards; 32” x 32”; 32% used
  Round 12: 390.2 gr; 1705.174 yards; 34 1/2” x 34 1/2”; 34% used
  Round 13: 459.6 gr; 2009.984 yards; 38 x 38; 44% used(459.6 out of 1050 gr)
  Round 14: 535 gr; 2339.733 yards; 40 x 40; 51% used (535 out of 1050 gr)
  Round 15: 617 gr; 2698.141 yards; 43 x 43; 59% used (617 out of 1050 gr)
  Round 16: ?? gr; ?? yards; ?? x ??; ??% used

• The number of knots in this yarn is amazing. There are knots across both plys, knots in individual plies and the occasional out of color knot: Knots found:
  In-color: 11
  Out-of-color: 1
  <p> Skein 1 (1/2 stitches): starting and transition skein
  Skein 2: (1/5) In-color-3; Off-color- 0
  Skein 3 (2/5): In-color- 4; Off-color-?
  Skein 4: (3/5) in-color-3
  Skein 5: (4/5) In Color-1
  Skein 6: In-color-?; Off-color- 1
  

Fun with Kauni

• Skeins had lots of knots, although most of them were “in-color”.
• Skeins were wound in different color directions.
• Skeins had substantially different color run lengths.
• I had to wind the skeins into cakes so I could more easily determine the color order.
• There was a fair amount of vegetative matter in the yarn, although nowhere near what is found in Noro.
• One skein goes from orange to purple to green to purple to orange -- it changes color direction in the middle of the skein.