Viola Video

I've found some really great videos about the Viola blanket on KnitPicks' site, and I'll share them here so you don't have to go hunting for them. The first is a brief interview with the designer explaining her creation:

But the really great one is where she explains her design process and takes you through what she did to get from a photo of a flower in her garden to a giant garter stitch yarn marvel:

Enjoy!

And take a look at the counter I have installed over there on the side. Nothin' fancy, but it will help us all keep track of bootie and blanket progress.

Bitten

Mosquitoes are biting, but I'm not sure what kind of ambition bug just bit me. I've got a massive case of startitis and this is what has happened--

I got an email from KnitPicks promising a hefty discount and I ran off and ordered pattern and yarn for this:

A Viola blanket. I've been smitten by this design for a very long time; love the almost abstract look of the giant flower, love all the shades of red, the crazy garter-stitchy plan of it, the sheer massive SIZE of it (about 4 x 5 feet, if you're asking). 4-inch garter stitch squares, 206 of them, sewn together in this great big cosy bloom. There are plain straight squares, mitered squares, diagonal squares, and one 4-miters square, most with stripes, just about everything you could do with the form. Here's where I've got so far:

Started with the plain squares, of course. Gauge is pretty close, certainly nothing blocking can't sort out. Did I mention each one of these guys has to be individually blocked before sewing? The blanket of 206 squares begins with the first piece.

But hold on, there's more! My idiocy knows no bounds! My daughter, the nurse, is in the midst of graduate studies on the way to becoming a midwife and Advanced Nurse Practitioner in womens' health. The clinical crowning glory of this is to deliver 40 babies. 40! That's more than a classroom of children.  Enough team members for just about any kind of sports match. The population of a small hamlet. And the first thing that will happen to all these people when they enter the world, will be to land in my daughter's hands. Something to make a mama proud, that's for sure.

So I have decided to knit a pair of booties for each of her babies, 40 pairs, 80 booties total. A celebration of the achievement of the making of a midwife, the making of a new person, and the making of a new mother. Handing on the love.

I've got a secret, though. Because I've been caught on the hop before by the sudden appearance of babies in my circle of acquaintance, I worked up a bootie stash:

That's 9 pairs right there, nearly a quarter of the way to the total, provided there are no other surprise deliveries along the way.

Let the madness begin!