Blankets and Rainy Days

It has been unseasonably cool and rainy here in San Diego.  As such, it brings the need for warm blankets while sitting around watching TV.  I was also reorganizing my yarn stash and found a bag of hand spun alpaca (it actually fell on my head).


I had spun this alpaca from fiber purchased from Hazard Alpaca when I went to Alpaca Farm Days here and I purchased some dark chocolate and light tan colored fiber.  My goal was to knit a Hemlock Ring Blanket by Jared Flood after seeing a picture of said blanket in an old catalog from Webs Yarn Store.


I had also just started my spinning class at Helix Adult School and grandly announced my goal of knitting with my own hand spun yarn.  I think I added this pattern to my queue back in September 2008 and now it is the time to get it started.


I believe I was intimidated by the pattern and the finicky crochet cast on since it is a blanket knit in a circle but after this past year of doing a knit-a-long with the Evenstar Shawl (it is still not finished), it was fairly easy once I re-familiarized myself with the cast on.  The internet is a great thing!


Here is the yarn - it is a barber pole effect from the dark and light plied together.

Here is the start of the circle.

I'm just imagining how warm it will be - hopefully it will stay cool through the winter months but I'm not holding my breath.