As I started to watch (binge. Yeah. That’s a better term for it.) Game of Thrones my fingers ached to knit. I had just finished a shawl (hush! It’s gonna be a gift, so cannot disclose any details. Yet.) that had taken me… let’s just say, too long, and wanted something easy, that didn’t require a lot of my attention (lace-knitting. Requires attention. And for some reason, I seem to fall for lace-patterns… like said shawl.), so I went foraging in my yarn-stash. Found the two skeins of pretty (oh so pretty!) Meadow, rustic luxury, Red clover, a ”textured blend of baby llama, silk, linen and merino wool” from The Fibre Co. And yes, it’s every bit as lovely as that description purports. 200 grams of laceweight, about 1000 meters in total, now what could I make with it?

I am a sucker for shawls (basically the only thing I’ve knitted for the past five years has been shawls. And a few wrist-warmers.) but wanted something different, so I googled a bit, and decided on making a poncho, of my own design, so I could keep it GoT-bingeable. Experimented a bit with the number of stitches in the cast on, finally ending up with more or less half the number of stitches that I started off with. Good thing you can always unravel…

I binged. And knitted. Knitted and binged.
When I was done with the first skein, I decided to make a pair of wrist-warmers, also on the fly, picking upon the yarn-over-pattern from the poncho. Having completed those, I put them on while again turning my attention to the poncho.

I binged. And knitted. Knitted and binged.
And by the final episode of the final season, I still had approximately a quarter skein left. So I turned to The Handmaid’s Tale to keep up my binge/knit-bonanza, and then, finally.
Poncho. Done.
Sewn together, blocked, dried.
And. I. Love. It.

Sure, perhaps I was a bit too focussed on using more or less all of the yarn I had, which means it’s not even, in the sense that the width of the poncho is two-thirds of the length of the sewn together-edge, but hey. Asymmetrical is my thing these days, ever since reading Antifragile, so… I’ll not let anyone in on the fact that this was not a conscious design decision… (If you want it symmetrical, play around more diligently with the number of stitches and your desired length of the poncho.)

Here’s the rough outline for this garter-stitches only, back and forth poncho:
110 stitches (german stretchy cast on) on 4,5 mm needles (7 UK/US)

Lift the first stitch on every row, as if to knit purlwise

Knit 4 rows of garter stitches

A (2 rows): knit until 10 stitches remain, yarn over, knit 2 together, knit 4 stitches, yarn over, knit 2 together, knit 2 stitches

B: knit two rows of garter stitches

Repeat A and B until you have a long enough rectangle
Knit A, knit 3 rows of garter stitches and then cast off loosely enough to match the cast on

Fold in two, making sure to match the yarn over-holes together, and sew the top edges together, until the opening is just right for your head
Block the poncho and once it’s dry, have fun using it!

The wrist warmers:
40 stitches, using double yarn (german stretchy cast on) on 4,5 mm needles (7 UK/US)
Lift the first stitch on every row, as if to knit purlwise

Knit garter stitches back and forth (to match the poncho)

A: Knit 2 rows of garter stitches.

B: Knit 3 stitches, yarn over, knit two together, *knit 4 stitches, yarn over, knit two together* (repeat ** five times, giving you 6 yarn-over’s for every row), knit 5 stitches

Repeat A and B until the length of the square is sufficient to wrap around your wrist (for me 13 rows of yarn-overs), cast off. Sew together along the cast on/off-edges, making sure the yarn-overs align properly.
Block the wrist warmers.