Rippling

So as you may have guessed from the not very unsubtle hints in previous posts, I have now mastered the art of rippling. To be fair it’s been a long time coming, I seem to be the only person that has struggled with the art of rippling. Or at least the only person that’s been brave enough to prattle on about their incompetency for the blogosphere to read.

I had a couple of practice goes with some yarn that was hanging around not being useful and the first couple were disastrous. I can only blame myself. Clearly I am incapable of counting. It shouldn’t be hard to do multiples of 14 but for some reason my brain couldn’t cope with the mathematics and had some kind of meltdown.

This left me a little nervy about starting my ripple for real, even after the Yarn Fairy gave me all the yarn I could ever want to get started on my blanket. That’s right. I got scared of counting.

I decided I would wait until I had a nice quiet moment to myself during the recent bank holiday madness. I procrastinated and did all kinds of other things but eventually sat myself down to make that first initial scary chain. In the end I made it easy for myself, I would focus all my attention on what I was doing and Chain 14. And then stop. And then chain another 14. And stop. And so on, in the hope that my brain wouldn’t implode.

I had no idea how long to make my foundation chain so I just kept going until I felt like it. I didn’t want to necessarily make another mahoosive blanket but I didn’t want something not even big enough to wrap around myself.

It suddenly came to me in a flash of inspiration. Like everyone else I am holding out hopes for a good summer this year (god knows we deserve it). And in this summer in my head, I am spending lots of time in my local park, sunbathing and reading and eating ice cream. You know what’s missing from that picture? A blanket to sit on! Something to take with me so that I’m not forced to go him with either a wet backside, or scrunched up cardigan that I’ve been forced to sit on.

So it’s not going to be a massive blanket, but at least big enough to sit on. I tested it out by sitting on my foundation chain (yes really) and decided that I was good to rock.

I’ll be honest, I expected more tears and tantrums along the way. I thought things would be going wrong and I’d be having fits and going into a frenzy every five seconds, but it’s been smooth sailing all the way, going up and down over the gentle ripples as my blanket has slowly built up.

There has only been one incident of some kind of miscounting where a row had to be redone but no-one was harmed in the making of my spazzing out so all’s well that ends well.

I decided early on that I needed to try and consciously avoid repeating the same colour pattern all the way through. You know me, Little Miss Order and Neatness, I like my patterns, I like everything to “make sense”. But I knew that that probably wouldn’t be the best thing for a ripply blanket, it would cut it up into sections and wouldn’t flow nicely so I’ve had to force myself to deviate from my natural tendencies. It’s really tough to be honest, but I think it’s going ok so far.

The plan is to keep going until the yarn runs out and then see where we are. I think I’ll probably buy another one of each again to make it that little bit longer and then there’ll be more for the yarn stash of randomness.*

One thing that is missing however is a name. I don’t know what to call this blanket at all. Calling it the Ripple Blanket just doesn’t feel like enough. I mean this blanket has only come into being because of Heather and my Mum’s friend, Lorraine providing me with the yarn. Maybe it should be called the Hellaine Blanket? Or the Leather Blanket? Or the Yarn Fairy Blanket? Any suggestions would be most welcome.

It’s nice to have another big project on the go. Something to dip in and out of. I shouldn’t really be working on it at the moment because I’ve got loads of other things I should be doing but sometimes the call of the ripple is too strong...

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*Speaking of the yarn stash of randomness, I dipped into it over the Easter break and produced some squares for Sarah London's Crochet a Rainbow project that I first heard about over on Lucy's blog. I love it when I can use up all my random bits of yarn that aren't big enough to make something properly with but I can't bare to throw away! I'm just waiting to get the address to send these guys off.