I finished my second Opt art baby blanket, all 99,012 stitches of it. I added my daily tally of knitting to my spreadsheet of the previous blanket, to compare how I got on.
The purple line is the previous blanket, and the orange line this blanket. This is a great project to do in winter (rather than summer time as previously), as it makes a great lap warmer! I did have a slight issue, when on day 51 I ran out of yarn. I really couldn't understand this, as I used exactly the same yarn as last time. So a small knitting panic ensued; involving rushing after work to one knitting shop only to leave empty handed, diverting on the way to a gig to another yarn shop, and then only when I was so happy to have a ball of Sirdar Snuggly in my hands, did I realise that the concert tickets were left at home!*
It did eventually dawn on me as to why I needed more wool, as I realised that I had used 5mm needles instead of 4mm. Yes, I am one of those people who never does a gauge swatch. The whole blanket took 53 days to knit (average rate 1869 stitches per day), however I only actually knitted on 37 days (so the true average is 2676 stitches per day). It took 2 days longer than my previous Op Art blanket, but this can be explained on the knitting trauma of having to buy an extra ball of wool. I knitted on more days than previously (37 vs 32), though the average number of stitches achieved daily, was lower (3094 vs 2676), this is explained by me having slightly less TV watching time (which is when most of my knitting occurs) as I have two jobs at the moment.
*Panic over, after a quick drive back along the M8 to pick up our Cornershop tickets, we manged to miss only a little of the support act - phew!
The Op Art baby blanket is finished! All 99012 stitches of it, at roughly 110cm square. 
As the pattern calls for an increase of 4 stitches each row, my inner geek created a spreadsheet so that I could keep track of my progress. Column 1 contained the number of stitches in each row (n+4), column 2 was the cumulative total and column 3 to add the date I achieved that row. And now I can plot a graph of stitches vs time!
Beautiful! The whole blanket took 51 days from cast on to cast off (average rate 1940 stitches per day). However, I only actually knitted for 32 of those 51 days (a Trekky has to rest you know), so my true average is 3094 stitches per day.
I enjoyed this knit, the pattern was very well written and easy to follow. The first couple of rows were fiddly, but after that it was nice and easy. I used 3 pink stitch markers to tell me when to increase, and a blue stitch marker to tell me to increase and switch stitch (from knit to purl or vica versa).
It was a great TV knit, as you can stop at any point in the row with no stress. As well as in front of TV, this blanket was knitted on the 42 bus, at the Yarn Cake, at Glasgow Central Stitch 'n' Bitch, on the train to Helensburgh, whilst listening to A Playful Day podcast, whilst going along the M74 (I was in the passenger seat) and even whilst watching the Eurovision song contest in Lincolnshire.
And this is just the start of this blanket's adventure, as it is now off to Berlin!
The purple line is the previous blanket, and the orange line this blanket. This is a great project to do in winter (rather than summer time as previously), as it makes a great lap warmer! I did have a slight issue, when on day 51 I ran out of yarn. I really couldn't understand this, as I used exactly the same yarn as last time. So a small knitting panic ensued; involving rushing after work to one knitting shop only to leave empty handed, diverting on the way to a gig to another yarn shop, and then only when I was so happy to have a ball of Sirdar Snuggly in my hands, did I realise that the concert tickets were left at home!*
It did eventually dawn on me as to why I needed more wool, as I realised that I had used 5mm needles instead of 4mm. Yes, I am one of those people who never does a gauge swatch. The whole blanket took 53 days to knit (average rate 1869 stitches per day), however I only actually knitted on 37 days (so the true average is 2676 stitches per day). It took 2 days longer than my previous Op Art blanket, but this can be explained on the knitting trauma of having to buy an extra ball of wool. I knitted on more days than previously (37 vs 32), though the average number of stitches achieved daily, was lower (3094 vs 2676), this is explained by me having slightly less TV watching time (which is when most of my knitting occurs) as I have two jobs at the moment.
*Panic over, after a quick drive back along the M8 to pick up our Cornershop tickets, we manged to miss only a little of the support act - phew!
