Sky Inspiration

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Have you heard of the Sky Scarf pattern designed by Lea Redmond of Leafcutter Designs? It’s a simple but utterly charming and whimsical idea. You essentially knit a basic garter stitch scarf with alternating stripes of color that represent the way the sky looked on a particular day for a certain length of time. I love the concept, and she has an entire book of similar ‘free-form’ knitting patterns that I’ve been enjoying flipping through.

Read it!
My newest inspiration.

One pattern in the book I wish I had seen earlier, Bundle of Joy, is similar to the Sky Scarf. Instead of stripes on a scarf, you knit squares of a blanket for every day of your pregnancy and you end up with a lovely newborn-sized blanket for the wee one that represents the time he spent in the womb when he couldn’t see the sky for himself. HOW SWEET IS THAT, AMIRIGHT?!?! While I missed the boat on the pregnancy record, I think it could be equally sweet to make a blanket representing the first year of baby’s life, starting it near the date of his birth and giving it to him on his first birthday.

skyproject

Colorway ideas, The Loopy Ewe Solid Series

I think it would be a fun way to incorporate mindfulness into my inevitably busy and hectic days as a new parent: notice the sky and take just a few minutes to knit it. Here are some options I’m mulling over:

  1. I could knit the pattern as described, as little squares, but then I’d have to join them all later and I’m not sure I’d love that.
  2. I could weave the squares on a Zoom Loom, which would provide justification for owning a Zoom Loom, and might be faster than knitting a little square… but I’d still have to join.
  3. I could make a sky version of a Hexipuff blanket, which is rumored to have an easy joining technique, but each little puff would need to be stuffed.
  4. I could essentially just make a larger version of a sky scarf, knitting a few rows in garter stitch across a blanket-sized piece of fabric for each day.

I’m feeling partial to option 4 at the moment, especially since it would likely be easier to keep track of than individual pieces, there would be no joining at the end, and it would preserve the order of the days of the year. However, I do really love the patchwork look of the other options. What do you think would be most doable for a new mom?

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I hate edgings.

Whichever option I choose, it will not have an edging for which I need to pick up stitches, since I freaking hate doing that. I thought I was being all clever by adding a slipped stitch edging to my Newborn Vertebrae sweater, since I heard or read that it makes picking up stitches easier, but it turns out it just made my edging look floppy and messy. I picked up all the stitches around the edge of this wee sweater TWICE and it still looks like crap. Now I need to pick up stitches one in from the edging, because my slipped stitches are leaving gaping holes. Sigh. That’s what I get for trying to get fancy with things.

9 thoughts on “Sky Inspiration”

  2. When I make a baby blanket, I make a garter stitch bottom, sides and top; size depends on type of yarn and blanket size usually 5 to 8 stitches with corresponding height in the borders, but you end up with nothing to pick up and all that is required is weaving in a few ends.

    Kinga

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  4. That’s clever. Things like that are kinda big right now – there’s a temperature one going around also.
    I think you could do option 4, if you want stripes. If you want squares, have you though of mitered squares that you keep joining as you go?

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  5. The sky scarf sounds a lot like the temperature scarf (which can also be done as a blanket or a shawl). Choose a color to represent each 10-degree range on the thermometer (or maybe 5-degree range if you use Celsius), plus a couple of extra colors to indicate inclement weather (I have a friend who is using gray with silver lurex to indicate rain and a white sparkly eyelash to indicate snow); then knit a couple of rows each day based on the high temp for that day.

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  6. Maybe you already do this…. but do you twist your slipped stitches when you knit them? I find that often helps me prevent gaping holes.

    Also, I think you should do the blanket that most inspires you. You’ll be more likely to keep at it. If you did do the patchwork one, you could keep track of what days are what by coloring in graph paper. A square per day.

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Thoughts?