Technique Blanket

In my quest to learn to knit better, I often find myself watching countless YouTube videos about technique. Sometimes I grasp them quickly. Other times, well, the voodoo of whatever knittery it is completely escapes me. Things that prove to be too difficult often get discarded in favor of the easier stitch. As gratifying as this can be in the moment, it doesn't lead to skill development.

I was talking to my roommate about this before bedtime and we realized that part of the problem is that once I learned to knit, I just started launching myself into projects without really spending any time practicing on the basic techniques. I'd not spent hours and hours just knitting to understand gauge or spent days knitting and purling to gain speed and steadiness. Instead, I worked on one sloppy project and then the next, never finding any true satisfaction in any of them.

Besides lousy technique, one of the things I have in abundance is lots and lots of random bits of left over yarn. Seriously, I have tons of the stuff. It's taking up space in boxes in my storage areas, space that could be used for other things.

Of course, these two problems present the perfect solution. I am going to begin a Technique Blanket.

All of my old bits of yarn will be knitted into a blanket. The colors will be random, as will the weight of the yarn as I'm going to be working with what I have. The style will also be random, as I will be practicing various knitting techniques as I progress. When the whole thing is big enough, I'll sew my strips together and have a crazyass knitted blanket. I also suspect that the later parts of it will look far better than the parts I'm doing now, as my skill levels will have increased.

I'm pretty excited about this. It's a long term project, one that will happen as it does. I think it's important I do this though, because I really need to hone my skills.

And everyone can do with another blanket.