2023 A Middle Earth Winter C2C Blanket

My plan is to do a 68″ x 78″ blanket.

Starting with one of the semi-solid colors, I did three rows, then did 3 rows of Day 1’s mini. Six rows is working out to be 4″ in length per side.

So each day will be three rows of a semi-solid and three rows of that day’s mini, until I reach 68″ length. I’ll continue making it straight for 10″ before then beginning the decrease on both sides for the remaining 68″ of length.

This should work out to using 17 minis for the first section, 2 minis for the 2nd, and 17 for the 3rd, which will also mean repeating the use of the first 12. The only question is how I’ll handle things when the rows get long enough that I can’t do 3 rows with a mini. I figure I’ll cross that road when I come to it. If I end up needing to dye more minis, I could always do that, though I’d prefer not to.

12/12 – Day 6 was the first day that I didn’t have quite enough yarn in the mini to finish my third row, so I finished it with the semi that was following it and then did 3 rows of the semi too. Starting with Day 7, I only did 2 rows of the minis and the semis. Day 11s mini was the first that didn’t make it through a full second row, so I finished that with the semi after it and did 2 rows of the semi. I may do that again for Day 12. At some point these will go to single rows, I’m just not sure when.

12/13 – Today was the first day I only did 1 row of each the mini and it’s following semi solid.

The straight sides of my triangle are now 42″, 26″ shy of the 68″ I need to reach before doing the straight bit. So technically, while I’m over half through the first use of my minis, when you figure out area (68×78=5,304 sq in versus (42×42)/2=882 sq in), I’m really only a bit over 15% finished with the blanket. I know this will change relatively rapidly since the triangle grows in both directions as it’s worked, though it is a little deflating to realize how far I’ve still got to go.

I’m also realizing that I’m probably going to run out of yarn, both minis and semis. I haven’t done the math to know that for sure, but my gut is pretty strong on that.

Three minutes later — Ok…just did some quick and dirty math…my triangle weights 428 grams so far. At 15% done, that means the total weight should end up being around 1700ish grams. I have 179 gr of semis left and approximately 273 gr minis left – including leftovers from earlier days – for a total of 880 gr if I use every little bit. So I’m more than half short on yarn.

—– Insert me laughing hysterically and crying. —–

I’m insane. ALSO! Using this math, by the time this is done, it’s going to weigh about 3.75 POUNDS, and that’s without any border.

—– Insert me laughing hysterically and crying. Again. —–

1/4/24 – I am 5 rows away from my goal width of 68″. When I laid it out on the bed today to measure, I realized just how long 68″ is. While I definitely need that width to cover the bed and hang over sufficiently on both sizes (about 5″ each side), 68″ also already comes up to about the bottom edge of our pillows, even if the blanket is pulled down a couple of inches over the bottom of the bed. If I do the extra 10″ of length straight as I’d planned prior to decreasing, it is going to be unnecessarily long. We’re not using it as a bedspread, just a cover for extra warmth.

This means once I do my next 5 rows, I can just start the decrease part of the blanket and not do the extra 10″. This is amazing news for me! LOL It means I’ll need to dye less additional yarn to finish it, and it also means there’s a better chance that I can finish the whole thing before the end of the Pigskin Party, which would be amazing.

1/11 – I reached my goal width a few days ago and have started my decreases. The rows are definitely getting shorter but they’re still long enough to take about a half hour each. But I’m left with more yarn from the 20 gram skeins each stripe I do, so there’s visible progress! That and my squared off corners.

So far I’ve dyed 12 extra minis keeping in the Middle Earth theme (none of which I plan to offer as variegated colorways, but it’s been a good way to try out color combinations for future MEI striping colorways.

Minis 1-5: variegated versions of the first 5 MEI colorways
Mini 6: variegated version of Day 25
Mini 7: var. version of the 6th MEI colorway
Minis 8 & 9: var. versions of the next upcoming two MEI colorways, danger creature themed.
Minis 10-12: var. versions of the three that will follow that, Elven themed.

Before dyeing more, I’m going to use up as many of the leftover bits from the first 24 days, combining similar ones in the same stripe, as necessary. Leftovers are the picture with the bag of yarn balls.)

2/7/24 – The blanket is finished! I wove in most of the ends last weekend, so now I only have the ends from the last section to weave in before I can submit my points since this will be eligible for BLITZ points!

I ran completely out of yarn before this last push, and so I dyed up one last batch of yarn that included six more minis and five half-skeins of Bona Fide semi-solids. I probably could have gotten by with just minis of most of those, but I didn’t know that at the time, so half skeins seemed safer. I used all of the minis except a little bit of the three of them. I’m happy with my yarn usage, and now I have yarn left over that I can make yet another MEI/AMEW-colored project!

The last 6 minis I dyed included 5 that were Middle Earth themed and potentially new MEI colorways (The Hill/Hobbiton; The Mountain Pass; The Misty Mountains; Lake Town; and Trolls at Sunrise), and the 6th was a variegated of the five core semi-solids I’d been using.

In the end, my original yarns (24 minis plus the first four semi solids) came to 2,100 yards. I used an additional 2,150 to complete the blanket. I did dye some of that before the end of 2023, so at least half of this blanket can be considered made from “stash,” for what that’s worth. LOL