Slow Sunday Stitching - August 22, 2021

The last couple of weeks has had a lot of attention in the garden - I have an abundance of peppers and tomatoes.  There has been salsa making and canning!  I have a couple of days of vacation coming up and I hope to have my fall crop stuff in the ground then.  I'm doing lettuce, beets and hopefully snow peas, since my spring crop of snow peas didn't do so hot.

With all the focus on the outside, crafting has slowed down a bit. But I did get the second of the alternate blocks for Lucy Boston "Patchwork of the Crosses" finished.   I'll be cutting out the black pieces for number three this afternoon.  After I check out the SSS crew (link to current round up).

There's also been quite a few hours put in on Dutch Beauty. I don't know why, but for some reason I decided to go an entire page instead of ten hours for this rotation round.  I'm still tracking time, so at 19 hours, there's still two flowers and two birds to go!

Finally, let's talk about the sock yarn blanket.  I have about six inches left to go on Round 8

And this is the total of the scrap sock yarn left, including the dark ball that is attached to the work!  When I started this project, there were two large (gallon) buckets stuffed FULL of yarn.  I'm actually impressed that I knit all that up! 

OK, obviously not nearly enough to go around again!  I laid out the entire thing on my bed and when I finish the round, it will be 40 x 40 inches (102 x 102 cm), which is a bit small for an afghan.  Fifty to Sixty inches seems to be more standard.   My original plan was 12 rounds, with the last two rounds being plain navy blue - one knit round, one I-cord round for a nice, solid edge.  Each knitted section is about 2.5 inches (6.3 cm) deep, so each round adds 5 inches (12.7 cm) to each dimension.  The I cord acts like a quilt binding, wrapping around the edge, so it won't add much to the finished size.

So my choices are:

1. end with one round navy and I cord - 45 x 45 inches is big enough
2. do two rounds of navy and the I cord - 50 x 50 inches
   
3. dig into the full skeins of sock yarn and stick to the original plan  55 x 55 inches
   

I hate breaking into full skeins for what is intended to be a scrap project, and worse, I only have two socks worth in the stash right now that is not handspun and they are both medium blue!  (Zero variety ;-( ). I do have some scraps that are designated for LOSY hats for charity.  I don't want to break into those since they are the perfect commuter knitting and are already kitted up with pattern and needles ready to go once the EPP project (Lucy Boston above) is to the point where it's not portable anymore. And there isn't enough in that project to get all the way around Round 9 so I would have to break into the full skeins anyhow.

I'm tending to option two - that would be a five inch border plus the I cord edge.   I should have enough of the navy for that.  The navy is all the left overs from a coverlet that I wove years ago.  All the loom waste (which is in pieces about a yard long) will go into the first knit round and the cone (unbroken) will go into the I cord since joins in I cord can cause issues.  We will see how much yarn I have left when I get the first round done.  Option one would be acceptable if I've used up most of the loom waste at that point.  It's a gallon freezer bag full, though, so it should be enough.  If anyone has an opinion, please weigh in!