Thanks! This took me about two weeks - I'd say 35-40 hours of knitting altogether. It's worsted weight, which works up reasonably quickly.

Thank you!

The entire thing is just knit except for the hexagon pattern, which are knit on the right (front) side, then purled on the wrong (back) side. The angled parts are made with right and left twists, which are simpler to execute than the instructions make them sound.

Colour changes are generally fairly easy. If you're thinking about doing just the hexagons in a different colour, the instructions for intarsia cables would be the best place to start. Intarsia also looks more complicated than it is in practice, though in this case I think it would be a good idea to make a practice swatch to test it first. You'd want to add the new colour when you do the first purl stitches for each hexagon on the wrong side, then I think the "2tog" part of each twist would use that strand instead of the background colour. I'd also test doing the entire twist in the second colour to see what that ends up looking like and go with whichever one I liked best.

ETA: I'd also recommend using something like a German twisted cast on and Icelandic bind off. They're both a bit stretchy, so the top and bottom of the blanket won't feel tight or pull in.

Funny thing, I actually did the opposite years ago. I think the only thing I have that isn't in storage and could read a CD is an old hacked Wii.

I'm using yarn for this one. The embroidered spots will be much less stretchy than the rest of the fabric, but I think that'll be fine. My biggest consideration will be making sure I'm not causing the fabric to bunch weirdly around the bees. I've never done embroidery before so I'm going to knit a swatch to experiment on before I touch the actual blanket.

I definitely will! I still need to make a swatch to test embroidery on garter before I go for it on the blanket, which I think I'll save for the weekend when I have more time to dedicate to it.

I love how crisp the twisted stitches look.

I use Stitch Fiddle to do something similar, especially for colour coding complex cable charts or marking where to add beads, then export to PDF so I can load it into KnitCompanion for tracking. It makes life so much easier.

No problem!

Ravelry has been around for a long time and is hands down the best resource for finding patterns (apparently ~700,000 have been uploaded). Their advanced search is fantastic if you're looking for something in particular, but the sheer number of filter options can feel kind of overwhelming at first. If you're logged in while looking at a pattern, you can see other people's projects, which often include helpful notes and photos. Rav also has solid user tools, including ones for tracking your own projects and yarn stash (which will build up if you stick with knitting), and a huge yarn database that I mostly use for finding photos of yarn colours in various lighting before I buy them online.

I find that with the way I knit, most cable needles get in the way. For smaller cables (up to about 5x5, depending on yarn weight), I use one of the thicker plastic locking stitch markers, and I prefer the big safety-pin-style stitch holders for anything larger.

It's certainly been doing its best to drive me insane. 😅 I plan on having it framed (and thoroughly sealed against pests) once it's done.

It looks great! Mattress stitch is fiddly and can take some practice to learn to do neatly, but I bet you'll see improvement on the second mitt. You can also always undo the seam on the first one and redo it if you're not happy with it

VeryPink Knits is a great resource for video tutorials, including seaming/grafting. She also has slow motion videos of a lot of techniques that are specifically geared toward beginners. She's been my first stop for years when I need to learn a new technique for a pattern.

My best advice overall is to take each new technique as it comes. A lot of patterns seem intimidating on first look, but even the fanciest, most complicated-looking stitches are (almost always) just knits or purls at their core.

There are tons of free tutorials and resources out there, and lots of online and in person fibre arts communities full of lovely people. Ravelry is a fantastic place to start for free and paid patterns (Etsy has a lot of AI slop scams), and I hear their forums are pretty good. If you're a Discord person, feel free to DM me and I can link you to a fibre arts server I joined a few years ago as well (not sure what the rules are here for linking to those sorts of things).

The first time I saw them was at a New Year's Eve show at The Rickshaw in Vancouver. IIRC, they were opening for Ninjaspy, who were friends of mine (could've been the other way around, it was almost 20 years ago). The two bands joined forces to lead the crowd in a midnight singalong of Bohemian Rhapsody.

I used to go to The Dreadnoughts' annual Punkstravaganza mini festival at The Rickshaw every year, but I moved away a few years ago. Now I only brave the winter drive if they release a new album or if I'm really into one of the openers.

They're one of my 10-year-old stepkid's favourite bands. I've promised to take her to see them if they're still playing when she turns 19.

I get irrationally angry any time I hear "I's". I can tolerate most other grammar issues, but something about that particular butchery of English drives me up the wall.