This morning I finished knitting my handspun Mixed Flock blanket.
Six different fleeces - three pure Shetlands (from Shetland), white Ryeland, black Zwartbles and grey Blue Texel (all from Perthshire)
Three intermediate shades blended by drum carder
Nine shades of undyed natural wool, hand spun to fingering thickness two-ply yarn
The central Fair Isle part was knitted in the round with a steek. If you look carefully you can find 11 words - the names of each of the breeds and the Shetland words for the different colours of wool, plus my initials and the date - knitted in to the pattern.
Then I cut it open at the steek and picked up the border stitches - just over 1000 to start with, increasing at the corners to 1256 stitches before casting off with an i-cord edge.
It took approximately 320 hours of work from raw fleeces to blanket. It measures about 145 cm square
Design modified from Rams and Yowes by Kate Davies - I made it bigger, knitted in , and modified the border.
Scroll back for earlier posts about the spinning, knitting and steeking.
