It's done!

The blanket that I have been working on for Ryan since November is done!  Actually, it's been done since March 24 (or so Ravelry tells me, don't you love Ravelry for reminding you of such things?)  but I didn't have the energy or time to blog about such a gigantic project immediately since I had an unexpected visit from my dad plus hours of research work dumped on me at the last minute.  Anyway, you don't care about that.  You're only here to see this:



That blanket is 4 FEET x 6.3 FEET.  As you can see, it covers Ryan's entire futon.  This monster is so big that I could barely back away from it far enough to get good pictures in Ryan's smallish living room.



(Look in the background of this picture and you can see Lucy the Triceratops who lives on Ryan's bookshelf.)  The blanket is a knitted representation of the Golden Ratio, which supposedly produces the most visually pleasing rectangle.  The ratio itself appears in nature in lots of ways, tree rings, nautilus shells, even human brain waves.  The rectangle is made by organizing squares next to each other in a way that keeps the ratio 1:1.61803398... (That super ugly second number is phi, one of those irrational numbers the like pi or e that basically make the whole world work.)  Each square gets smaller and smaller.  Mathematically, this shrinking continues infinitely.  Since I haven't yet figured out how to knit infinitely small, I had to fudge a bit at the center.



The golden ratio also creates a spiral, which I had originally intended to crochet on the top of the blanket, but Ryan decided he thought the stark geometric look was more his style.  I used Swish Bulky yarn from Knit Picks (because I am no fool and knew that if this was ever going to get done I'd have to use bulky yarn.)  It's 100% superwash merino wool and it's heavenly soft and squooshy and wonderful to handle, especially in plump garter stitch.  The colors I used (from lightest to darkest) were: silver, hawk, stormy, coal.  I ended up needing about 2,475 yards of yarn.  That's 1.4 MILES! It would take me like 13 minutes of running to get somewhere as far away as the length of the yarn in this blanket.



That's a picture of me sitting on the blanket for perspective, lest you think I found a really tiny futon to throw it over.  (Yes the blanket is wrong side up in this picture, Ryan had it like that when I came over.  Funny to a knitter it seems like a horrible offense to a giant piece of knitting to have it displayed wrong-side up, but Ryan honestly can't tell the difference.  I guess this is a good quality for a blanket which really is better without a wrong side.  I'll take it as a compliment to my finishing skills.)

I wrote up a pattern for this beast, and also for two smaller sizes: stroller and crib.  They are basically created by knitting fewer of the blocks.  My blanket has 7 blocks, crib has 6, and stroller 5.  I also included instructions for adding the spiral in case anyone wants the complete math-nerd effect.  Right now it's being test-knit by some great Ravelers.  When they get their feedback to me I'll publish it via Ravelry and let you all know it's there.  You can also check out the Designs tab at the top.  Right now the only thing there is Spring Breeze, but I hope to get a few more there shortly.