In planning stages

#1

I’m planning my first big, huge blanket.
I want to knit into it, some of those dishcloth patterns.
Each separate dishcloth has 36 cast on sts., except for one.
So, I’ll be using 5 dishcloth patterns, strung all together, as the top of the blanket.
That will be 180 stitches, needed. Is that going to be too much for a cable to handle?
And, do I draw out the pattern, on paper, and knit across, like, for the first row, for the first 4 rows, I will be knitting across, to make the border, then,row 5, for the first square, I k3,p30,k3, then, for the 2nd square, I k3, p30,k3, for the 3rd square, i k3,p29,k3, and on and on, till I reach the end of ALL of the 5 rows?
Then, I knit ALL of the 6th rows,
then, all of the 7th rows, and so on?
Is that how I do it?
I’m tired. Am I making sense?:passedout:
I just came home from work.
Anyways, that’s neither here nor there, but, is that what I do?
to make the pattern correctly?

:??

#2

Sounds like you planned it out perfectly. A long cable needle will hold 180 stitches easily.

#3

Something to consider would be to make the blanket in strips. Make one square then start the top of the next one, then the next one etc. This would mean you would have less stitches to deal with at one time. You would have to sew the strips together at the end, but that doesn’t take too long.
This way each of your squares could be different colours without a lot of colour changes. I think most afghans done in squares like that are either done in squares separately then sewn together, or done in strips.

#4

I was thinking along the lines of knitgal. Doing all the squares side by side would make for one, continuous piece but at some point the piece might get a bit unwieldy as it gets really big (trying to work on a full-size afghan on your lap). If you do opt for working all the sqs, you might want to consider introducing a purl, or 2 st cable, between the blocks to define their edges. Otherwise the 3 border sts of one will just blend with the adjacent sq and there won’t be anything to delineate one from the other. (Unless you were planning to do each sq in a diff color.)

Just a thought.

cam

#5

When I knit things together, my joining looks junky. Just ruins the whole thing.
Can you show me a video that teaches a clean, professional looking joining technique?

#6

http://www.knittinghelp.com/videos/knitting-tips
Scroll down to “Mattress stitch” which is an invisible seam. I used this to sew an afghan made in strips together and it really is invisible.

#7

How long a cable needle do you suggest?

#8

I just finished an afghan on size 13 needles 29" long using 2 strands of worsted weight yarn and had plenty of room for about 160 stitches.

#9

If you’re going to buy one for this project, I’d go with 36" just to give you a little more 'wiggle room"

#10

Yeah, you wouldn’t need one longer than 30-36".

#11

I went ahead and got a 40 inch circular needle.
But, now I’m stuck with the pattern. I wrote about it in whatcha knitting.
Letters, how do you knit 2 or 4 letters in a row, on circs?
forwards, then backwards, then forwards again?