Blanket of Death!

When I tell people about my 'Blanket of Death' project, they often tell me, 'You can't call it that!' or 'That's not a nice name'. To that, I say, 'I can' and 'It is'. It was named after a song called 'Angel of Death' by the Thrash Metal band, Slayer (Of course! Thrash metal and knitting go together like...Tasmanian Devils and kittens). Besides, if I called it something else then I would no longer be able to do this:

This young man is doing a lovely rendition of Slayer's 'Angel of Death'

in order to relieve my frustration and, let's face it, there's plenty of that during the 'creative process'. Think of of it as a form of catharsis: I get all 'roaring like a big, hairy man' so that I don't have to stab people with my hooks and needles, thereby doing humanity a huge favour. No, no, please, don't thank me, it's all in the name of philanthropy.

It's taken me a while to decide on colour combinations but the the top picture shows my final choice for the main square and border colours. The orangey one is actually a bit more 'pale coral' than 'worrying vomit' in reality - don't you just love how weird colours can be on screen? I decided to choose Oaty and Scrummy Plum for the border:

When I knitted the brown square, it took every single ounce of effort not to eat it because it resembled Cadburys chocolate in its purple wrapping. If I'm rushed into hospital one day for a 'yarnectomy', you'll know why.

The squares are knitted diagonally and then I've crocheted the same type of border as the Doggy Blanket  from my last post. I'm pretty happy with the results, although the teal one was a practise and so it looks like it's got a bad hangover (you know, the kind where you can only open one eye at a squint) These have not yet been properly finished - you can see some fuzzy ends sticking out here and there. They also need to be blocked, so they will be beautifully square and lovely in the end.

Going back to 'Things that make you want to scream like Satan with a stubbed toe', check out my progress with the 'Brioche Stitch Cowl of Woe':

The observant amongst you will notice that there is a lifeline (you thread some yarn through the stitches you have on your needle, so you can rip back to there if needs be) just above a very wonky looking row. Yeah. Major lesson learnt: do a life line before you balls up. I had to rip back quite a number of rows because I made a mistake and then had a HELL of a time trying to get the stitches back onto the needle the right way round.

Didn't work. That's why it looks like it's gone on a bit of a wander before getting its arse back to where it should be. Never mind, it will be all bunched up when it's worn and no one will notice and I won't care anyway and why are you looking at me like that is there something WRONG WITH MY SCARF?!

Deeeeeeep, breathe...might need to check out that screaming video again...

My next task is to look up a simple crochet pattern for Rob's hat. Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to Ravelry I go!