Stripey Hemlock
I've had two balls of Cascade Eco-Wool sitting around in my stash for... man, four years or so. No kidding. I bought it from The Fiber Gallery in West Seattle when they first opened, opening week, and as a result, the skeins (long since wound into balls) carried a faint whiff of fresh paint, even years afterward. I'd just never figured out what to do with them.
Clearly the ideal project was... a scoop of fudge ripple ice cream?
No, seriously, I've been taking advantage of Ravelry's pattern finder lately. I did a search for any project that would take between 600 and 800 yards of an Aran-weight yarn, and came up with the Hemlock Ring blanket by Jared Flood. It's a lap-sized blanket with a center motif and a LOT of feather and fan extending out from the center.
I'm intrigued to see that many people managed to get a perfectly flat blanket out of the deal, and many other people had a very ripply blanket (like I did, although blocking helped). This is one of those lovely things about Ravelry -- it's always great to see the different things different knitters come up with. :)
Mine, as I say, started very ripply:
and got better after blocking:
Cuddly and sheep-approved!
This marks the first time I've ever had to block a blanket. It's also the first blanket I've ever made that's 100% wool -- no acrylic whatsoever. :) And I'm very happy to say that after a bath in Eucalan-enhanced water, it smells a bit of eucalyptus and a bit of damp sheep, but not at all like paint (the paint smell dissipated pretty fast once I started working up the blanket).
