Big Blanket!

Big blanket! I bought these needles (size US 50!) and yarn like 2 years ago. The yarn is a size Jumbo 7, used for a size 50 needles. The big yarn is pretty expensive, so I don't often have the opportunity to knit with these needles. Worth it, though! At first I tried to make a blanket using the seed stitch, because I thought it would be cool to use a more complicated stitch, but I decided to redo it and do stockinette because the seed stitch was just looking a little weird.
Knitting with huge needles is definitely a different experience! It's more of an exercise and I have to do it pretty slowly. I cast on 18 stitches here, which is about 2 more than can comfortably fit on one needle, so I also have to be conscious about not letting the stitches slip off. What a great reminder to slow down and pay attention.
Knitting during quarantine is helping me a lot. I've learned that having projects that I work towards is super satisfying for me. Getting a little further on a long term goal, even one as small as a possible blanket is very energy inducing for me.
I believe I mentioned this before on this blog, but this project reminds me of knitting artist Anna Mo! Click here for her instagram! Click here for an article about her "chunky knits! She makes blankets and other things with giant yarn and needles. Her art is even bigger than size 50. I don't know a lot of knitting artists, but I am hoping to get more artistic with my knitting soon.
The first photo is me knitting on a small couch in my room! Below the big blanket, you can see a peek of my sack! Remember the sack I knit? I still have it and it still brings me joy whenever I see it. I don't think I have enough yarn to make a full blanket, but I'll knit until I'm done with the yarn! Knitting is so fun!

Image description: A hand resting on a big pair of needles and yarn in order to show the size of the needles.

Image description: Sarit smiles with her mouth closed, while in the process of knitting.

Image description: Sarit smiles with her eyes closed holding up her partly knitted pink blanket.

A Day Of Stress, but It's All Good Now

Here's a fun lesson for you all: sometimes you should just take a break.
I've been working on this sweater since late March. It has little hearts on it! The pattern calls for it to be made in parts, so pictured below are the front (with 4 hearts) and the back (2 hearts). Then I will make the arms and sew them all together.
This fateful day I was working on the front and it said to "work both sides of the neck at the same time, using separate yarn for each side." There were some other factors that were confusing and was also mixed with the fact that it was like 2 am didn't help. I was freaking out because I thought it wanted the front and the back to be knit at the same time. And that did NOT make sense! Also, there were things later on in the pattern that did not go with it. Anyway, I stressed out for a very long time. I scattered things across the floor: do I add circular needles? Do I need to take the placeholders off of the back side? Anyway, after a time of freaking out on the floor and reading and re-reading, I went to bed. THEN the next day I preceded to do the same thing. BUT then I figured it out. It was about making sure the two sides of the neck are the same length because you slip the middle parts of the neck on a stitch holder and each side has a different ball of yarn. Anyway, so now I'm working on the arms using this technique! Both of the arms need to look identical, so in order to make sure that is true I am knitting them at the same time with different balls of yarn. You can see this in the last photo. Hooray!
Hey, so it's quarantine time! So, knitting is a way dive deep into a project to avoid thinking too much about quarantine. So fun! Bye!