a blankety week

It's been all blankets all the time around here this week. Back in January I saw the book Knitalong online somewhere and started to think about making a blanket for Anabel's new little one. Specifically, I saw the Blessingway blanket, which looked like something Anabel would like. I talked to Kristi about it and we debated whether that was the right project, particularly since the book wasn't out and then thought about doing something more square, but what yarn? What patterns? You know, all the things you debate when starting a project. Kristi then happened to see a class a couple of friends of hers taught at her local LYS on log cabin knitting. We discussed a couple of different yarns to use and then settled on Pakucho. Kristi picked some colors and I knit the first square.

We decided that we had a winner! So Mary and I wound yarn into the kits and distributed it to Janice, Lisa D, Lisa L, Karen, Rachel, Jeni, Teenuh, Jill and, last but not least, Cookie. One kit was sent off to Kristi and then I waited for them all to come back. There were more knitters than there were squares to knit, so Juls and Hannah contributed to the ordering of the yarn. The last square was delivered to me on Thursday at which point I got the crazy idea that we could finish the blanket by today because Kristi is in town and I thought it would be nice for her to be there when we gave Anabel the blanket. I sent out a desperate plea for help with seaming and Cookie, Jeni, Lisa D, Karen and Teenuh all came over yesterday evening to help. Thanks all! By 11pm, the squares were seamed.

blanket pieced

Originally I had a crazy plan (I'm all about the crazy plans) for a border with mitered corners. Then I thought about an i-cord border. In the end I was pressed for time and overwhelmed by how large the blanket had become. Each of those blocks is 12" square! So, in the end, a crochet edging was added in natural. I did one row of single crochet and then one of half double crochet. I was pleased with the result.

done!