Drop Souls blanket

Advertisement

New Life Blanket

The full version of this pattern is available HERE,

A minimized version of it is a part of my novel, HERE.

Alligator

In long lake at Meher Spiritual Center, lives a baby alligator. Three years ago he was a baby – 1 foot/30cm long, and as we go there often, we’ve been seeing him growing with the years. Now he is about 2 yards/2 m long now, and I consider him a ‘young teenager’.

Last year I was standing on the bridge talking with a friend, when the alligator came. He stood (in the water, which is quite shallow) on his back legs, just like a dinosaur! His head was an inch or two under the water and his eyes bright and yellow-green.  I have never seen such a thing before and was sorry I did not have the camera with me.

Yesterday my husband and I went to the center. As we left the car I was thinking: we don’t have the camera – maybe we’ll see something interesting (because my husband saw the alligator a week before that, when he did not have the camera with…)   We stood on the bridge, it was breezy and nice, and there was that alligator again. He came by, swimming slowly, and again stood on his back legs! He stood for a while, giving us the eye (this time his eyes were deem, maybe he has cataract) . It was an odd feeling, eerie. Then he swam a little – putting his arms and legs near to his body, like body surfing but in a very slow motion.    He stopped again under the bridge, lean his chin on a pipe and half floated half stood there, just as we do on the side of a pool. After a while he floated away again.

I don’t know about this alligator. Next we’ll see him dining with knife and fork (properly held in his left hand), and a clean white napkin.

 

How much Yarn do I need?

Now, that I spend time happily writing the baby blanket patterns, I needed a way to give some estimate of how much yarn is needed. While usually, for me and for my friends, I just wave my hands in the air and say ‘just use what you have’, here I need to be more specific.

Since my charts are in chunks of 5 sts and 5 rows (as oppose to 8 base grids), here is the way I do it:

1. knit 25 sts. Undo and measure the length in yards or meters.

2. Count how many squares of 5×5 of that particular color/yarn are in the chart.

3. Multiply the length by the number of squares you need, and – voila! you have an estimate!

Hope this helps!

Maddy

Here is an email and an image that I got recently from Pat:

“I just had to tell you that your book Color & Picture Knitting gave me the courage to knit a portrait of my granddaughter. As I was knitting, I wasn’t sure, but I followed your advice and just kept going. It came out great!”