Knit. . . the Fish blanket is finished at last!

Oh yes indeed. . . it has gone from this:

Selection of sock yarn scraps (these from iMake in Guernsey)

to this:

Gratuitous photo of dog posing on part-finished fish blanket

to this:

Tedious task of adding approx 7 metres of 3 stitch applied i-cord

to this finished product (finished, but as yet unwashed and unblocked!)

Finished fish blanket, laid out on Queen-sized bed

It's a great feeling to finally have it finished after 3 years and 1 month, but at the same time I feel a bit "lost" on car journeys without my ever-present fish to knit. I have tried knitting other simple projects in the car, but it's not quite the same. But do I really want to knit another fish blanket? Not really, well, at least not a sock yarn one. Maybe one in thicker yarn at some stage, with a much more restricted range of colours.

Now for some stats on the blanket. I started it on 24th May 2008 and finally finished it on 25th June 2011. It is 13 fish wide by 24 fish tall. The 312 fish and applied i-cord combined weigh a total of 860 g or 1.9 lbs. That's around 3.5 kms or 2.2 miles of yarn!! I used 74 different "dark" yarns and 34 different "light" yarns (substantially less light yarns, because so many of the light fish are undyed). Unblocked, it measures 50" or 127cm square, and once I have washed and blocked it I will update this post with new measurements and pictures.  You can get a bit of the back story on the blanket in my post from March: "The never-ending fish blanket."

The fish blanket would not have been possible without the generosity of many women in swapping sock yarn scraps with me: Susan, Jesse, Martine, Katrina, Sara as well as everyone who took part in the 2010 NZ sock yarn swap. I thank you all most sincerely :) Also my lovely Wifie who knitted every single one of the rainbow fish which form a border to the blanket (alternate rainbow and undyed fish). Although she can knit, it's not a big obsession. She can happily go for months without so much as picking up a knitting needle, and yet she stoically knitted 35 rainbow fish for me over a period of 6 months this year. If that isn't true love, I don't know what is!!! Thank you my love ♡

This is one of my favourite projects EVER - in fact it probably takes top place. I would definitely recommend it as one of the best travel projects known to humankind, as a travel fish-knitting kit takes up so little room and hardly weighs anything! The pattern I used was April Broken's "recipe for fish", which works in any yarn weight, as long as it is a smooth type of yarn with good stitch definition. Here is the link to my ravelry project page and so far this project has received the most ♥ of any of my ravelry projects :) 

I still have loads of sock yarn scraps left over, so next I am planning to make a "Mitred-square sock yarn blankie" as detailed here at Shelly Kang's blog. Watch this space :)

PS I have finished knitting lots of other things in the last few weeks as well, but felt that the ginormous project that is the fish blanket deserved a post all of its own!