Yippee! Break out the bubbly! Time to celebrate the completion of Hailey's handknitted blanket. :)
It took over a year to knit this blanket. I designed it as I went along, just making squares with
Bernat Softee Chunky yarn in the colors Fern, Med Sea Green, Pale Antique Rose, and Lavender. Using size 10 1/2 knitting needles, I cast on 30 stitches to knit each square. I stopped knitting when each square was "square". I made some of them in garter stitch, a couple in seed stitch, and 5 in stockinette. I drew a little diagram on a piece of paper, to help me see when I had enough squares, and to keep my choice of colors symmetrical. (I'm OCD about things being in symmetry.) :P
There are lots of re-writes on my diagram, because I changed my mind a lot as I went along. I even made two extra squares without even realizing it! I used two colors of yarn in a slip stitch pattern called "Partridge Eye" to knit those.
As it turned out, I didn't like the way they looked with the blanket, so I'm glad they were extras!
The duplicate stitch embroidery was done with the same yarn, using a leaflet called "A Beginner's Guide to Duplicate Stitch" by Hickory Hollow. I did the letters for Hailey's name on my own. Part of the rose design was stitched with
Bernat Baby Coordinates Chunky in "Cosy Rosy".
Lots of counting and planning was involved with the embroidery layout. Again, my OCD was hard at work. I even went so far as to put the flower design in my computer's Paint program, then clicking "reverse image" to get the leaves on opposite sides for the blanket. It would have driven me crazy for the leaves to be on the same sides. ACK!
It's good that I have a hobby that needs this kind of detail work. Otherwise, I'd be knit-picking my husband to death. (Maybe that's why he always encourages me to knit? Hmmmmmmm.)
Anyway, back to my original story.....
When I was satisfied with all the embroidery, I laid it out to see how it fit together. Nice!
Next, I just needed to decide how to seam it all together. Usually, I seam back and forth on the right side, kind of like mattress stitch. But, this time, I went with a simple whipstitch....again on the right side, using lavender yarn all around. It turned out great!
Here's a close view of the center square, so you can see how the seaming looks:
When all the squares were seamed together, I got started on the border. First, I used single crochet in "Lavender" all around. Next, I switched to "Pale Antique Rose", and went up one side. Then, I noticed that I was almost out of that color, so I changed to
Bernat Baby Coordinates Chunky in "Cosy Rosy" for the top, then back to the
Softee Chunky in "Pale Antique Rose" for the other long side, then back to "Cosy Rosy" for the bottom.
After that, I did a double crochet border all around in "Med Sea Green". Then, I switched to "Fern" and did single crochet. My last section of the border was done with the "Lavender" yarn, in a simple shell stitch. I don't know if it's the correct way to do a shell stitch, but I did it anyway. The stitch repeat for the shell is this:
*SC, chain 1, skip next stitch, 3 DC in following stitch, chain 1, skip next stitch*. I settled on that after trying a few different things.
I hope Hailey likes her new blanket. I know I do!
