Good morning and happy Friday to you! This week I want to show you some new colorways inspired by The Lord of the Rings, and I also want to share the painting I’ll be using as inspiration for the February club colorway. Last of all, I want to give you a quick “recipe” for making a mitered-square blanket.
Lord of the Rings Colorways
If you have been around these parts for awhile, I’m sure you have noticed that I am a big fan of The Lord of the Rings. You might even call it an obsession–one shared by my whole family.
The colorways for the 2023 Advent calendar were inspired by Aragorn’s journey through the trilogy, and last week I showed you all the colorways via a youtube video I made before shipping them back in October.
Nearly all of the colorways were new and created just for the Advent calendar, and many of you reached out and asked if I could make some of those regular shop colorways. Of course I was delighted to do so!
This week I dyed up three of them. Here they all are on Sock Perfection:
The first one is called Chasing Orcs and Hobbits. That is when Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas were trying to get Pippin and Merry back from the orcs who had kidnapped them. I dyed each of the three colorways on Sock Perfection, Stained Glass Sock, and Squoosh DK.
Here is Chasing Orcs and Hobbits on all three yarn bases:
In my shop, I have a list of “yarn pairings”–colorways that would look great with this one.
The second new colorway is called The King of the Golden Hall, which is the home of Theoden, the king of Rohan. Gandalf comes to rouse the king and his people into action–one step among many to save Middle Earth from Sauron. Here is The King of the Golden Hall on all three yarn bases:
It’s quite similar to Enchanted Forest, but the colors are a little more distinct from each other, and there is more brown and purple.
The third colorway is The Palantir, based on the “seeing stone” that Saruman had, Pippin looked at, and finally Aragorn used to good effect against Sauron. Here that is:
As I write this, I have more yarn soaking for the next new Lord of the Rings colorway. I’m hoping to dye up several more this coming week and have a larger collection for you by next Friday.
I made a new Lord of the Rings collection in my shop, and you can see all of these colorways there as well as a few more.
February Club Colorway
Last month, we got to start over as close to the beginning of art history as possible. Now we are moving forward once again. There’s a huge gap between The Great Black Bull from 20,000 years ago and the next painting though.
It’s from the New Kingdom of Ancient Egypt, and it was found on the tomb of a scribe named Nebamun. It was made around 1350 BC and depicts him hunting birds.
Mitered-Square Blanket
A week or two ago, I asked for some help finding a pattern for a blanket, and several of you had great suggestions. Thank you!
I decided to commemorate all of this year’s club colorways by making a mitered-square blanket. The tricky part is that all the patterns I could find very sensibly show methods for making the blanket modularly–meaning adding squares as you go rather than having to assemble the whole thing at the end. However, since the colorways will be available one at a time over the course of the whole year, that means making the squares individually and deciding how to put them altogether at the end.
I thought I would share what I came up with in case you’re interested in doing this too. There are different methods for doing this depending on whether you go with an even number of stitches or an odd number. I chose even because I liked the stitches better and I thought it would be easier to remember the number I cast on. I am using Squoosh Worsted and casting on 50 stitches for each square. I wanted to use the whole skein with little wastage, and I was able to make 6 squares like this from one skein of The Great Black Bull:
I have not yet blocked it, but I did block a sample I made in a different colorway, and it came to 7 inches square. These little squares are strangely addictive and very, very portable. Here are the instructions for knitting a mitered square:
Decide how many stitches to cast on and cast on half of that number. Place a stitch marker and cast on the other half of the stitches.
Row 1: Slip the first stitch and then knit across the row. (WS)
Row 2: Slip the first stitch and knit to 2 stitches before the stitch marker. K2tog, slip the stitch marker, SSK, and then knit to the end. (RS)
As soon as you can, mark the side of Row 2 with a removable marker so you can set it down without worry any time.
Repeat Rows 1 and 2 until you are down to just 4 stitches. At first the stitches will remain straight, but gradually they will start to bend in the middle because of the decreases. It’s sort of magical.
When you get down to just 4 stitches and you are at the beginning of a right side row, repeat Row 2 one last time and then bind off.
That’s it. It’s super easy and there’s nothing to write down or keep track of.
That said, I haven’t decided whether to sew or crochet the squares together at the end, and I’m not really looking forward to that part with 72 squares! I am, however, looking forward to seeing all the year’s club colorways together.
I hope you have a wonderful week and find time to cozy up with a nice cup of coffee or tea and knit, crochet, weave, or spin to your heart’s content! See you next week with more Lord of the Rings colorways.