The Magnum Opus is Finished

 

My Mitred Square Blanket that is. Which I started in January 2018 and finished this month so a couple of months shy of eight years. The good thing is I love it, the bad thing is that I like it so much and I still have loads of scraps, I want to make another. I will try to be sensible and not do that until I have added these older left overs to my scrappy crochet blanket.

My blog post in 2018 when I first started this, said that I hoped to finish it by the end of 2019. What I didn’t take into account that as it was left over yarn this project did not take any priority as I worked with unused yarn first. Many months went by without picking up a square. At the beginning of 2024, I decided that was the year to finish all the squares. And this I managed and blocked them all. At the end of that year I purchased the black yarn for the borders and started joining in 2025.

On returning home, I finished the projects started on my trip and then returned to working on the blanket which was nearly finished – I was on the last border. Dealing with the ends did take quite a while.

Here it is in all its glory. 

 

All the Finished Things

 

In my last post I mentioned that I had completed projects with all the yarn I took on our trip apart from the airplane knitting project. So how about I show them all – two hats, mitts, a shawl, and the cowl and socks I made with yarn purchased.

My criteria for choosing these projects was that they had to be relatively easy but still hold some interest and I couldn’t worry about running out of yarn.

The hats and mitts were knit from yarn I had purchased in 2021. They are the same colourway, the hats in DK weight and the mitts in fingering weight. I thought instead of taking hats and gloves I could knit them on the journey and have them ready. I used two different hat patterns – Lonely Hearts Club, which I have knit before, and Chevron Rib Beanie which I ended up having to modify because as written the pattern makes a pointy hat.

 

 

The mittens were also heavily modified, which I was expecting before I even started. I like gloves with a top flap as you can keep your hands warm but when necessary, you can use your fingers. But I do not like the flapping flap on this style. Searching for patterns I came across one with a fold over flap but looking at the finished pictures, I liked the style but not the fit. I bought the pattern anyway so I would not have to think work out the construction while travelling and completed one mitt to see how it fit. I then worked out how many stitches I would need for my hand, frogged the original and worked two that fit to my liking. If I knit these again I would adjust the length before working the thumb hole.

 

 

I had some yarn I had purchased on the 2019 yarn crawl that I thought would work for baby knits, but it never happened. When searching on Ravelry for pattern ideas for that yarn, a lot of people had made the Virus Shawl, but I had already made one of those and didn’t want to make another. So with a bit more searching I came up with a shawl that used granny stitches and the virus stitch. And the beauty of the pattern is you can work any number of repeats of each pattern. The yarn is Katia Stella and the pattern is Starting with a Granny. 

 

 

The other two items were knit with yarn purchased while we were travelling. There is a yarn shop in Bergen railway station. Obviously it caters to the residents of Bergen but as there was time between having to leave our accommodation and board the train I was able to have a quick look around and buy some sock yarn. It’s not the most exciting yarn and I’m not really sure why I chose the colour. I was determined to cast on before we left Norway and the socks were started on the bus to Sweden! I didn’t want to make plain socks but nothing too complicated either so I chose Moldau by Caoua Coffee. 

 

And the other item was a cowl using yarn and pattern that my sister had given me and some yarn I purchased in Sweden.

 

What Did I Knit on my Trip?

 In March, I wrote about preparing yarn to take with me. I had two issues in choosing what to take:- I wanted to use stash but also I had a limited amount of space. I wound six skeins of yarn – two DK weight and four fingering weight, plus I had a couple of 50 gram skeins already wound and a couple of yarns that came ready to use.

The problem was, once wound, the yarn took up more space than a skein that can be stuffed into a small space. So I had to pare down my choices and hope I would be able to buy yarn if needed. Before we left I cast on a fingering weight hat for airplane knitting, plus a DK weight hat and a crochet shawl. In addition I took another skein of fingering weight yarn and purchased a pattern that I wanted to make with the yarn. I also took a set of interchangeable needles and a set of crochet hooks and a small notions bag with what I thought I would need, except, as it turned out, the scrap yarn I would need for a provisional cast on.

All this yarn was used except the airplane knitting which is still on the needles.

I did not want to make yarn browsing a part of this trip but if we came across a store we would go in. One of the difficulties of buying yarn in Scandinavia is the shop opening times. In most cities the shops closed at 5.00 pm and were not open on Sundays and these times did not fit in with our days spent in museums. I was successful in two places. There is a yarn shop actually in Bergen Railway Station where I purchased sock yarn which I did use. And in Sweden we had some free time and visited three yarn shops in one town and I found a set of minis to go with some yarn that my sister had given me with a pattern for a cowl. That project was started and finished on the trip.

Towards the end of our trip I really did need more yarn (ahem, let’s just forget the yarn I purchased in Ireland)* and we went to a store in Richmond, London. Having wound a skein of sock yarn by hand, I really didn’t want to do that again so I chose a skein of DK weight yarn as I had a pattern in mind. I’m so used to using a winder and swift that winding any yarn by hand is not fun, but I did it and started the project and worked on while we were away – but did not finish.

The truly souvenir yarn I purchased was a kit for Latvian Mittens purchased in Riga. I definitely wanted to go to Hobbywool to see their selection and this was made easy by happening across it while exploring the town. It is an old looking shop in an alley. 

 

The hard part was choosing which mittens to knit – so many choices. Finally I opted for this pair.

As we were economical with space, I had to say goodbye to the box. I also chose not to start them so as to not worry about having to follow a chart in what might be less than optimal conditions.

 

*I was worried about running out of yarn and in the pouring rain in Cork, Ireland, I went looking for local yarn. I purchased a skein of sock yarn and even wound it by hand but I did not get around to using it; mainly because I could not think which pattern to use.

Air BnB Reviews

 

I had started to write this early on in our travels because the reviews and ratings that users were posting on AirBnb did not make sense. They would rate an accommodation 5 Stars but their review was less then glowing. So why a 5 Star rating?

Before I had completely written my post, we stayed at a place that had a sign that said what the rating system means. Apparently, the rating system is not the same as other rating systems and anything less than 5 stars is not good. If the accommodation is as expected then an overall 5 star rating is what you are supposed to give. Which makes a mockery of the whole system as how can you distinguish the superb from the ordinary? It also makes the number rating system meaningless if every rating is 5.

Of course I did some internet searching and came up with a subreddit – which was eye-opening (not related to ratings). There are claims, and at no point has anyone provided evidence, that anything below an average 4.3 rating gets your property removed from AirBnb. And yet there are many people who save their 5 stars for top notch properties which seems fair as why should a no-frills place be the same rating as a luxury home with top of the line amenities and a fantastic location?

What this means when searching for somewhere to stay, is that the number rating is meaningless. Are previous guests 5 star raters for everything or 4 star raters for everything except for the best of the best? And you have to hope that the written reviews are honest.

We stayed in some amazing places and some basic places, and I would reflect this in our reviews.

Why I Won’t Use FlixBus in the Future

 Caveat: all opinions are my own based on personal user experience.

There were some journeys where going by bus was the better option and FlixBus was a good price, assigned seating and amenities. The first time we used them was travelling between two Danish cities. Shortly prior to departure time I received a notification that the scheduled bus would not be a FlixBus but a local bus with a sign in the window. Check with the driver if you are unsure. One of the reasons for choosing FlixBus is their bright green livery. So here we were at a bus station with unmarked bays hoping that we didn’t miss the bus. It all worked out.

This didn’t put me off using them again. The next time was between Estonia and Latvia. Once again, shortly before departure time received a notification that it would be a local bus not a liveried FlixBus. At least this time we were at a large bus station with all departures and bays clearly signed. But the bus that turned up was a very basic bus without the amenities described on the app. The seat numbering was different and as we were not the first stop people were already sitting in the seats and area we had booked and paid extra for. The driver had blocked off two seats for his own belongings and moved them for us.

Two sub-par experiences equates to using other companies for future travel and our next bus journey with a different company was in a marked bus with no surprises.

Travelling from Belfast to Glasgow

 

I am writing this as a separate post in case it helps someone in the future. There are flights between the two cities but we eliminated this option due to timing and cost. We decided to go the ferry route but it was frustrating that the options I kept coming up with involved having to get to Belfast Harbour, take the ferry to Carnyran, then coach to Ayr, then train to Glasgow. This seemed like too many changes and it wasn’t clear what happened if any of the transportation was delayed would the coach and/or train would wait.

Eventually in my searching, I came up with an option to get on a coach at Belfast Bus Station that would take you to the ferry and then in Scotland the same coach would take you to Glasgow Bus Station. The advantage of this in addition to not having to worry about connections, was not having to carry luggage. The downside was having to leave Belfast early or arrive in Glasgow late – we went for the leave early option.

WIP Situation

 A little interlude in the travel stories to talk about my WIPs as it is that time of year when the Ravelry group finishes all their projects ready to start the next year fresh.

Although I have been trying to keep my WIPs low this year, the long trip caused a buildup. I had some projects that I didn’t manage to finish before the trip and didn’t want to take with me and there are some projects that I didn’t quite finish while I was away. So I am starting this WIP season with nine projects. Which is the same number as last year, the difference being that last year I had started a few projects to take on a trip.

Three of these projects are blankets and were on the needles last year; one of the blankets is an ongoing project and will not be finished anytime soon which leaves me eight projects to finish in three months. Usually I would work on the projects in order of cast on but two of the projects have a small amount of work required to finish, so I will work on those first. Then I will finish the mitred squares blanket. I am on the last border and it is all knit but it is big so have to be in a comfortable position to work on it. Four of the projects are relatively easy knitting, although one is a fingering weight double layer hat so although the knitting is easy there is a lot of it. I will probably leave that one to last or second to last depending on the other blanket. This is one of the year long blankets I made last year. It is in three strips which need to be joined, and I haven’t decided how I want to do that. I know I don’t want to sew them together and I don’t really want to pick up stitches and join them. I’m thinking of some sort of crochet join. But what sort has not been decided.

Hopefully by the end of the year I will have completed six of the eight projects.