I just finished writing Year of the Dog ! It had a massive plot hole that I had to fix which turned out to be more work than I expected. Here’s a snippet: “Hey, Auntie Nell.” He wrapped his arms around her, bussing her on the cheek and breathing in pikake flowers and shortbread cookies. And suddenly he was nine years old again, and her solid presence had made his chaotic world stable once more. “What are you doing here?” He usually took her to dinner on Wednesday nights, but today was Tuesday. The edges of her smile faltered a little before brightening right back up again. “What, I can’t visit my nephew?” She angled around him to enter his home. “Is this your new house? Looks lovely.” Which was a blatant lie, because the fixer-upper was barely livable, much less acceptable to a neat-freak like his aunt. She also left four matching pink and purple floral suitcases on the stoop behind her. Only then did Ashwin notice the cab driver standing slightly to the side of the walkway. “Can ...
I haven’t posted my knitting in a while, mostly because I’ve been working on long projects rather than little simple ones, and for some reason I can’t do one project at a time, I tend to have several going at once.
One of those projects is this knitted counterpane or bedspread. I’ll eventually post the entire pattern, but it’s adapted from the No. 52 Counterpane with Diamond Stripe that was published in 1888 in the Young Ladies' Journal Complete Guide to the Work-Table, Sixth Edition, pages 71-74. You can download a free PDF scan of the original antique book at the link above.
It’s knit in strips which are then sewn together lengthwise, although I connected the strips using single crochet, which I think made the joins a little more sturdy.
I intend to add an edging from the same book on the bottom. I did each diamond pattern repeat a total of five times, which made each strip about 90” long, and the edging would go on each short end and make it about 108” long. I’m thinking I’ll give it to my mom for the extra-long twin bed in her guest bedroom. My mom always folds the bedspread around the pillow, so the extra length will enable her to do that.
It’s actually pretty easy, but was a bit tedious to knit from the written instructions, so I charted it and then it got a lot easier. I’ll post the charts later.
I’m almost done with the bedspread! I only have one more strip left, and then I will knit the two edgings. Since I started it with provisional cast ons, and the edgings are knit in one long width, I’ll be able to connect the edgings using three-needle bind-off.
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