I Did Sums

I did sums.  I worked out that I saved 28% on the goods I had delivered today.  It was the Tesco '3 for 2' offer on some of the gluten free stuff, mainly their own brand.  I bought insane amounts of pasta, plus brown sauce, gluten free fish fingers and a few other bits that wouldn't expire quickly.  This is the important part - I used mysupermarket.com that the price hadn't been artificially inflated before the offer so that I was actually saving the money.  You have to watch the supermarkets.  But it had been around that price all year so 3 for the price of 2 was definitely a saving.  I got bear to check my sums.

I've finished the blanket.  I can't get a decent photo.

The pale colour is much more a mid blue.  It was supposed to be knitted in Carron One Pound, and you were supposed to get two times 454g (16oz) balls in each of the three colours.  Then you were supposed to knit in three strands.  At three separate points you were supposed to knit with three strands of the same colour.  This means that you had to unwined the balls of Carron One Pound and re-wind them into three separate skeins.  I recoiled from that in horror.  Instead I got some inexpensive 100g balls of DK (though the Carron One Pound is equivalent to Aran, I went for cheap) and I ended up using three balls of colour A, four balls of colour B and four balls of colour C (I think the yardage was inconsistent).  Carron One Pound is not always easy to get here, and if I had bought their yarn it would have cost @ £66 instead of @ £16.50 inc p&p.  The free pattern that I used is here and the YouTube video is here.  As I used a different weight yarn the blanket was 44 inches across instead of 50 inches, but it was 60 inches long, the same as the pattern.  The pattern was described as easy, and it is just a sort of rib, but it was 2x2 rib, but not aligned so you couldn't switch off, you had to concentrate.  Even worse was trying to make sure you always got all three strands around the needle when you were making a stitch.  I used up a lot of swear words.

It feels a little like cheating.  Carron have spent money, paid designers and done the photography and website to give a free pattern that is supposed to encourage us to buy their yarn.  If cost had not been an issue I may have bought three balls of the One Pound and used any leftover yarn for scarves or something, but I was never going to wind a ball into three separate skeins.  I think that is why I grew up with my mother and grandmother never sticking exactly to a pattern.  The really good brands of yarn invest money on pattern designers for gorgeous patterns to tempt you to buy their brand yarn.  In three generations, there hasn't really been the money to spend on the good yarn.  So you fiddle around with the less expensive brands and try and work it out as best you can.

The blanket is incredibly warm and snuggly so I will definitely be making more.  I may try the aran weight, if I see a good deal, but even the least expensive still costs more than cheap dk.  I may do more sums to try and get it the right width.