Hat on Top, Coat Below
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Pinwheel Blanket
December 1, 2007
Can it be? Another finished knitted object only about six weeks after the last one? Yes, indeed. This is the baby blanket I made for the daughter of a friend. Little Kate is only two months old, which I think might be a record for the youngest baby I’ve managed to finish a gift for. It helped that I took this on my trip to the UK; I had hours to work on it on the plane to London and in the car driving to, in, and back from Scotland. It also helped that this is stockinette with holes it in; that uses less yarn and time than a similarly sized piece of dense garter stitch. I’d never done yarnovers before; I’d made holes in my knitting unintentionally, but this time they’re meant to be there.
A lot of people have made blankets from this pattern; I can’t say for sure where I first got the idea to try one. The stripe sequence I’m sure I just made up as I went along. The coral stripes are narrow because I didn’t like that color so much; the red ones are narrow because it’s such a strong hue that I thought it might take over if I made them wider and also I wanted to balance the coral. Originally I was going to use a cotton candy pink in there, too, but it just seemed too light in comparison to the other hues.
Like the log cabin blanket, I used KnitPicks Swish and size 7 US needles. Unlike the log cabin, this grew a bit after being machine washed and dried. I don’t know if that’s because stockinette is more prone to stretching than garter stitch or because I pulled too much on it when I was trying to get it perfectly round (I gave up after several tries, figuring I was just going to fold it up to ship it and Kate isn’t a geometry snob as far as I know). It ended up being about 40 to 41 inches across, up from around 39 when it came off the needles. It took about 870 yards of yarn: 220 of the wine, 230 of the purple, 180 of the dark pink, 130 of the red, and 100 of the orange. I would have used more of the wine if I’d had it, as the seed stitch border could stand to be wider to keep the edges from wanting to roll up, but as it was I had to stop a couple inches short of a full round so I’d have an end to weave in. Next time I’ll plan better. Though I’m not sure I’ll do another pinwheel anytime soon; there are too many other things to knit. I’ve got some hope-they-grow-up-to-be-proper-socks on the needles right now.
One year ago, I had a very clean belly button.
Two years ago, I did not post an entry.
Three years ago, ditto.
Four years ago, I did a goal check-in. It might be a good idea if I got back to doing those.
Five years ago, I recapped Thanksgiving weekend.
