The Comfort Blanket KAL is back for 2023

I'm delighted to be able to announce that the Comfort Blanket KAL is back for 2023. It ran very successfully in 2020 and 2021 but last year I missed it due to the death of my Dad.

The year doesn't seem complete without my most popular KAL event though so I figured it was a good time to dust it off and relaunch it for another year.

Tell me more...

The Comfort Blanket KAL 2023 is a 4 week KAL which walks you through every step of planning and getting started on your mitered square blanket journey. I say journey because these blankets - typically knit from leftover yarn are generally considered to be long term projects. No one is expecting you to knit a blanket in 4 weeks - please don't worry.

Instead the KAL is intended as a springboard to get you started, with ideas and inspiration as well as practical tips for planning and construction.

The KAL will start on May 1st and each Monday for 4 weeks you'll get an email with that week's topic. The information will also be available within a dedicated Facebook group where you will be able to hang out with fellow Comfort Blanket KAL'ers and chat about your various projects.

And at the end of the KAL you’ll get an ebook containing all the information from the 4 weeks, along with a few other tips and tricks.

Previous year’s participants

If you took part in the previous KALs sit tight, as the joining instructions to the Facebook group and your automatic invitation will be heading your way soon. 

We all know that these blankets are a labour of love and you are welcome to come and join us again to add some more mitered squares to your work-in-progress. Or if you are a finishing superstar and you want to join in with another - because one mitered square blanket is never enough - it would be lovely to have you on board too.

Reading Corner Shawl

The Reading Corner Shawl

If you find yourself with some DK leftovers or small 10g mini-skeins this is the perfect shawl to use them up. The Reading Corner shawl combines 2 x 100g DK skeins and 5x10g minis in a simple stripe and eyelet design. Designed for minimal counting and maximum ease.

The Reading Corner shawl is an elongated triangle, knit mainly in garter stitch with contrast stripes, with an eyelet detail. As it’s knit in DK weight yarn it’s wonderfully warm and squishy, perfect for draping over your shoulders while you read, or the elongated ends mean that it also works well as a wearable, wrappable shawl on colder days.

Perfect for stashbusting and adapting to the yarn you have, each contrast stripe uses just under 10g yarn. You could use a single contrast colour for all the stripes, or mix and match with leftovers from your stash.

Blankets: the joys of doubling up

Garter Ripple Squish - pattern here

Yesterday I shared a post on 10 things to make with leftover sock yarn (that isn’t a sock yarn blanket). Because, let’s face it, sometimes you just need something gratifyingly quick to make. And with all the will in the world, and for all it’s many virtues, a sock yarn blanket is anything but quick to make.

I would however, add the addendum that sock yarn blankets can be speeded up quite considerably by the simple act of doubling up. Holding your sock yarn leftovers double or even treble can result in a very pleasing, squishy fabric that knits up quickly. It also eats through your stash with amazing rapidity - perfect for when you want to make a substantial dent in the leftover pile.

In this blog post here I talk about my Mahoosive Mitered Square project - which still isn’t finished, but that’s by the by. Holding the yarn doubled results in some really pleasing marled effects and makes the large squares knit up surprisingly quickly.

For a project with the yarn held trebled, please check out this post on my Garter Ripple Squish baby blanket. I originally knit this as a traditional DK baby blanket, but then being slightly overwhelmed by the size of my leftover pile I decided to knit with 3 strands at once. Yarn management was a bit more of an issue here but I solved it with the nifty use of a colander to hold the strands separate.

If I did this again, and I have to admit that I’m tempted I might consider winding the yarn into a magic ball - or 3 before I started - if only for ease of portability. I did find, as I moved around the house that my 3 yarn strands tended to get a bit tangled, no matter what I did to try to contain them.

For my next doubling up project I’m considering trying crochet granny squares. But with my notoriously awful crochet tension that could prove to be a bit tricksy. Still, I’ll give it a go and see what happens - watch this space.

Have you ever tried a project with the yarn held double/treble? And if so, did you find it helpful to pre-wind your strands to save on tangling. I’m curious about the different approaches we all take on this.

An autumnal Fuss Free Festival Shawl

Autumnal version of Fuss Free Festival shawl

Recently I have been using a lot of my sock yarn leftovers in scrappy socks and blanket projects, which has been great but has meant that my supply of smaller scraps has dwindled somewhat.

So when I ran out of sock yarn scraps I shifted my attention to my bag of larger amounts of leftovers. I think we all have a bag of these somewhere - those balls where you have started something and frogged it, or used an annoying 30-40% of it - rendering it not much use for a full pair of socks or a shawl.

I dug out these contrasting greys and a burnt orange from my stash - I had around 60-70g of each of them and decided to knit a larger version of my Fuss Free Festival shawl in suitably seasonal colours..

I knew that I wanted stripes but I couldn’t decide on how to arrange them and I spent more time than I care to admit using a random stripe generator, playing with colour orders until I went a little dizzy.

Then I hit on the idea of ‘borrowing’ one of my sons D20 dice from his Dungeons and Dragons set and rolling each time I wanted to change colour - with the number on the dice corresponding to the number of garter ridges I would knit.

I didn’t want a hard line at each colour change so I phased in the new colour by knitting 2 rows of the new colour and then 2 rows of the old colour before rolling the dice to determine how wide the next stripe should be.

I was really pleased with how it turned out and I got so carried away that I ended up digging out some more grey from my leftovers bag (happily it turns out I have no shortage of grey). And in the end the shawl weighed in at a very pleasing 210g.

It’s is wonderfully warm and wrappable and might just have converted me to the way of the larger shawl. It’s big enough to be cosy, without being too big (thinking of some of those 3-4 skeins monsters that almost wear me, rather than the other way round).

Either way, it’s become a staple of my autumn wardrobe and I can definitely see another one or two in my future. I think I might need to buy my own D20 dice though - as my son has been making noises about needing his back.

10 uses for scrap yarn - that don't involve knitting a blanket

Scrap yarn, leftover yarn, whatever you call it we all have it. Unless you are the most minimal and thrifty of knitters we all have a little (or not so little) stash of leftovers from other projects.

The question is what on earth do you do with it?

Yes of course there is the ubiquitous sock yarn blanket or mitered square blanket, or a mahoosive triple stranded project but sometimes you just want something quick and easy. Something that uses up odds and ends but doesn’t require a life-long commitment to yet another epic project.

So here, in no particular order are a few of my favourites:

Knit tiny hearts

Make felted tumble dryer balls

Knit tiny hats for prem babies

Knit scrappy socks - the clasped weft join is your friend here

Donate it to Knit for Peace

Make a magic ball

Knit a cute animal - I love the Bunny Nuggets pattern by Rebecca Danger

Make a pom pom (or two)

Knit an i-cord cosy for your ear buds to prevent tangling

Put it in a vase and make a feature of it!

PIN FOR LATER:

Knitting with yarn held double

Garter Ripple Squish - worked with 3 strands of 4ply

Some time ago, despairing of a never-ending mountain of leftover sock yarn, I knit a mahoosive ripple blanket holding 3 strands of 4ply together.

The resulting blanket is now a much loved snuggly staple in our house and usually lives casually thrown over the back of the sofa for anyone who needs it.

Knitted on 7mm needles and using over 4000m of yarn it knitted up surprisingly quickly and also made a pleasing dent in my stash.

Knitting with yarn held double or triple offers many advantages, not least the size reduction to your stash. Combining yarns of different colours, textures and even weights can produce some really beautiful fabrics that just wouldn’t be possible with just one yarn. And even better, they will be totally unique to you.

I love the marled effect you can get by combining colours - indeed I think that’s the favourite thing about this blanket of mine. And even now I can spend many a happy minute studying it and remembering the original yarns that went into it.

Some Tips: 

Swatching - yes I know - but even a little swatch will be helpful in making sure that you get a fabric you like. Technically speaking 2 4ply yarns held together should yield a DK weight but I know that in my hands at least, I get more of a worsted weight gauge. The way the yarns are spun and they way they wrap around each other during the knitting can all affect the final result. If you are planning a marl or a fade it’s always a good idea to do a little swatch first just to check that the colours play nicely together.

Winding - this is a personal one. Some people prefer to knit with the two strands coming from separate balls, some prefer to wind it into a single large ball before starting. This probably comes down to personal preference and how much you dislike tangling. If I was knitting from 2 or 3 balls I’d probably keep them separate (it also makes it easier to swap in new colours) but if I was knitting from 5 I’d have to wind it into a monster ball first.

Joining - again this is down to personal preference. With my Garter Ripple Squish blanket I used the clasped weft join to add in new colours as I wanted to and just weaved the ends in later. There is also the option to embrace the ends and go for a fringed effect if you are using up lots of odds and ends.

Ravelry - did you know that Ravelry now gives you the option to search for projects with multiple yarn strands. If you look down the search options on the left hand side you’ll see a box for ‘yarn held together’ and various options under that. This is a relatively new addition but I’ve found it to be really helpful.

As with so much in knitting, when it comes to knitting with yarn held doubled it really does come down to trial and error and finding something that pleases you - it’s great to look at other projects for inspiration but ultimately you are free to go your own way and create something truly unique.