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Sidetracked? No.

Today I had posted a picture of a project I am working on to my Twitter account. I immediately got a message from a friend telling me to get back to my blanket!

Let’s crunch some numbers, shall we?

In my yarn stash, I have enough skeins of sock yarn to complete somewhere in the neighborhood of 26 pair of socks. No, I’m not joking. If I want to have scrap yarn for my blanket, common sense dictates that I best get my ass to knitting!

So, in the last week in a half I have finished my Tudor Grace scarf, which got me a nice ball of shiny purple yarn…then I did my first Simple Things with some Socks That Rock in “Fire on The Mountain”. Nice scraps there too. Now I am working on second Simple Things that will eventually be a gift… even more yarn for my Insanity Blanket.

Simple Things alongside my Strappy Tank

More knitting...

I have started to make plans for the other sock yarn in my stash. The stash has yet to include my Wollmeise acquisitions… but I am planning projects for those too.

I also snagged some of the sock yarn out of the stash to put up for trade on Ravelry. So far, so good. I actually traded four balls of Knit Picks Palette for sock yarn scraps. Yes, I am *that* determined to get this blanket to work.

I have also gotten some great donations from friends of mine at my LYS!!

So, blankie update time…

So far...so good.

I am 49 squares in. 2 are not attached. One more to the 50 square mark! I am moving slowly right now, but once I get a few more projects under my belt I can start to devote more time to this. Plus I will have more colors to choose from once I get some of my swap stuff. I am hoping for some yellow.

Solid. Yellow.

I never knit anything for myself in yellow and there is spot in the blanket that looks like it wants it.

Tags: Insanity Blanket, Sock yarn, Socks that Rock

Slowly…things progress

I haven’t been sleeping much lately and that seems to leave me with a lot of time for crafting. I mean, God forbid I do the dishes or vacuum the house. Not that it would be a wise thing to do at 11 o’clock at night. I mean…what would the neighbors think? What? I don’t have downstairs neighbors right now? Um…yeah…well…

Crafting is pretty quiet.

Except for the sewing, which I try to keep to a minimum after 9 p.m.

I finished two skirts recently. Yay, something to wear this summer for work! The hand sewing hook and eyes with black thread was a real treat for some evening fun in low light. MY EYES! MY EYES!

I had some fun with a hot glue gun after knit-a-long last Sunday and made some cute hair flowers.

My daughter is thrilled with Mommy's attempts at girlieness

Then there is the knitting…all the knitting…

I have slowed down a little on my strappy tank, but it is pretty much all stockinette at this point. So it is more my mindless knitting. It’s “I’m half asleep on the couch watching bad t.v. shows” knitting.

So. Much. Stockinette.

Then my baby for the moment, the Insanity Blanket. It is coming along nicely. I got some great yarn from Vilma and Camille this week!

Vilma's contributions.

Camille's samples: noro from her poncho, and some of her koolaid dyed yarn from a class she took

The new stuff is amazing, and it is hard to get sick of knitting the same thing over and over when you get to try out all kinds of different yarn. It is really starting to grow.

I am going to knit some more squares as soon as I am done blogging.

I have been making sure to keep track of where everything is coming from. I have been tagging all of my flickr photos and labeling each square. Yay me!

Also, in a “hell must have frozen over” moment, I have started spinning again! My wheel and I have not had the occasion to spend much quality time together since the new year. It feels good to get reacquainted.

Of course I have been spinning all of my fiber samples for use in my insanity blanket. Man, ulterior motives!

I spun them end to end...

Later I will break the ends and ply them on themselves.

Now, off to knit some squares!

Tags: Classic Elite, Insanity Blanket, strappy tank

Go ahead and say it…

I am clearly insane. I *know* this and I really can’t help it.

This week’s craft update is just stating the obvious, because what would I be doing if I *weren’t* crafting?

Oh yeah, probably cleaning my house or something…

So, my WIPS (”works in progress” for you non-knittahs):

Classic Elite Strappy Tank.

Faerie Mountain Fibers spinning (drop spindle, this may take awhile).

2 skirts I am currently half-done sewing. I have waistbands and hems left.

Grey, my little alien friend.

An Insanity Blanket.

<insert screeching tires sound here>

What the heck did I just say? An Insanity Blanket. Yes that is right! For the record, I am not the first one to make one of these…you can see the original, and find directions on how to make your own on The Heathen Housewife’s Blog. That banner at the top….that’s it. The one that pushed me over the edge belongs to The Other Side of The Pom. Really, click that link…you may fall prey to it’s magic too.

So what is an Insanity Blanket? It’s a blanket made up of mitred squares. Sound crazy? Not really…until you throw in the fact that it is knit up of stray sock yarn…and I am knitting it on size 2 needles. It is sure to take me a very long time to finish, given that I don’t even own enough sock yarn to complete it, but we’ll see what happens.

I am also planning an taking it an extra step further and journal/blog my progress and chart where each square “comes from”. I figure there is a story in just about everything.

So here is a little example of what I have so far…

My squares.

The attached ones on the end there are the foundation corner of my blanket. Now to figure out how many 2 3/4 in. squares I will need to make a Queen size blanket. Eek!

Tags: Insanity Blanket