Gold Medal Knit

Warning: this is a very long post, you may just want to look at the pretty pictures.




Raveled here

I’ve had this post written for some time now waiting for the perfect pictures to sum up my newest love, Saffron Cables. I have been yearning to knit a blanket for some time now and have thought through several before settling on Saffron Cables from Interweave Knits Fall 2006. Since I knew that this project would take a while to complete and that it would last for such a long time I thought hard about what yarn to use. I knew that it had to be something that I loved, that would hold up over the years, and could be put in the washer if need be. Instantly my mind went the yarn that I have used most in my short knitting career, Socks that Rock. I love the colors, the feel of the fabric that the yarn creates, and I know that it holds up quite well over time. So after harassing Scott about what color he likes best, I finally settled on a lovely navy blue “in the Navy.” The yarn was purchased last summer with the teasing of my husband who draws attention to the fact that I have a hard time finishing projects, especially large ones. Knowing this about myself I imagined that this large project would be finished about the time that we were moving into our first house at an undetermined point in the future.

I started Saffron Cables back in January when I caught the flu and was home watching nearly the entire series of NCIS on DVD. While in the midst of a fever I nicknamed the blanket my NCIS blanket because the color’s name, like I said, I had a fever. The spring and summer came and despite the air condition I had no motivation to knit this lovely blanket anymore. One day I was browsing through Ravelry and saw all these lovely hand knit blankets; I thought that I would love to have the blanket done for this fall, that just maybe I can finish an item just before the months that it is intended for instead of putting it away as soon as the last stitch is cast off, awaiting for the right season. Then the Ravelympics came about, what a perfect excuse to finish something that might otherwise languish in my WIP pile. So I entered the Cable Steeple Case, WIP Wrestling, and Afghan Marathon. This was a challenge for me but somehow I was able to finish this just before the closing ceremonies ended. Thankfully late night swimming heats and extremely late night gymnastics allowed me plenty of time to knit. However knitting during particularly exciting moments made for some errors, at one time there was pretty bad cable mistake where I crossed it in the wrong direction for nearly twenty rows! Also do you know how long it takes to EZ sewn bind off 226 stitches? A couple of hours! Every minute was worth it; I cannot believe how beautiful this blanket is and how much I enjoy being underneath its warmth. The cool weather cannot come faster.