Blanketed

I had intended to get this post up yesterday, but with the holiday falling smack in the middle of the week, all my plans went out the window. So you'll just have to deal with getting it a day later than intended and bear with me if I get a little incoherent at times (I'm fasting and the headache is setting in quickly).

After many weeks, the baby blanket is finally done! (About time, too, because the baby's already arrived!)

Pattern: Chasing Rainbows by Trisha Mitberg
Yarn: Cascade 220 Superwash in colors 854 (Navy), 1914 (Alaska Sky), and 1985 (Duck Egg Blue), one skein each
Needles: US 7 (4.5 mm) Knit Picks Options
Started/Completed: August 30/September 22
Mods: thicker stripes; ended with an I-cord bind off rather than garter stitch

This pattern was dead easy -- just four increases every round and knit all the way around -- so it made from some pretty mindless (albeit boring) knitting. Obviously as it got bigger, the rounds got longer, so those last few stripes really took quite a while to do. I started with three colors of Cascade 220 Superwash, one of my favorite yarns for baby knitting, that I'd rescued from the orphan bin at my LYS. The pattern advised changing colors every eight rounds, I believe, but also using more colors. Because I was only using three, I decided to make the stripes a little wider and changed colors every 10 rounds.

My other modification was to end with an I-cord bind off, and this was really due more to the fact that I was running short on my yarn supply. I knew that my last stripe was going to end up significantly smaller than the others, and I was worried that I wouldn't be able to eke out enough garter stitch to make the blanket lie flat. The I-cord edging doesn't completely stop the rolling, but it gives the edge a nice finished look, so I'm calling it a success.

I blocked the blanket out fairly aggressively, both to make it a little larger and to get the "nipple" in the center to flatten out. I let the curves do their thing rather than try to block it into a square, so the shape is a little unusual, but I kind of like it that way. The finished dimensions are roughly 31" by 31", which is a great size for a baby and, judging from the blankets Rainbow likes to use, still a decent size for a toddler, so I'm hoping this'll get a lot of use. It'll be packed up and shipped out to its recipient this weekend!