Although I was out of town tending to family matters last weekend, knitting was accomplished - mostly on the flights and in the airports as I waited between planes. In addition to yesterday's swatches, I did some work on my counterpane.



As you can see there's a pie slice that's missing from the leftmost motif. My guess is that my missing triangle is now loose in the Orlando airport - a stopover on my way to my final destination. I doubt my feral triangle will cause more than a moment's pause as it is swept up and tossed away. So it goes.

As this piece grows larger, I can say I've definitely overbought my white cotton coned yarn. I have four enormous cones. I've gone through about a third of just one of them. I think I'll end up using just two of them to make the whole thing. Here's consumption so far. The untouched cone on the left weighs 1250g. It's the smallest of the four, with the others ranging up to about 1300g. The nibbled into cone on the right weighs 825g, and started out at around 1300g. Which all makes sense because my blanket so far weighs about 475g. (It's always pleasing when the math actually works out).



Since I've got about 20% of my estimated total surface area done, but have used only about 8.3% of my yarn (a third of one of four cones - roughly a 1/12 of my total available yarn), I'll have LOTS leftover. Still, I don't mind. It's nice yarn and there will be enough for another project (perhaps another counterpane). As an added bonus, the stuff was a very inexpensive back room find at Webs. I paid about $10 per cone for it. Since this project will last for about eight months at the current rate of production and I anticipate using only two cones, that works out to $2.50 per month of knitting enjoyment. It doesn't get any more economical than that.

How to knit on the cheap?? Don't buy what's trendy. Big fat yarns and glitzy yarns command a premium, but plain finish yarns, even first quality good wools and cottons can be had at very reasonable prices (even without resorting to reclaiming yarn).

Think smaller gauges. This stuff isn't particularly small being very close to DK weight (5.5spi), but even DK is lighter than many of the more favored yarns today. And think of? projects that get their zing from the knitting rather than from the yarn. Yes, they take a bit more time and attention than some plainer pieces, but isn't the entire idea to have fun knitting? No, if you are on a limited budget you won't be able to knit that fancy fulled cardigan from imported Japanese hand-dyed, but I bet with a little effort you could find a 100% wool sport weight yarn that would make a smashing texture stitch or stranded colorwork jacket and not break the bank - especially if you consider how many weeks of knitting time you'd get by investing in such a project.