Green and blue and grey all over

Yes, I’ve decided to grace the Internet with my priceless writing again. (Such a shame not to have updated my blog for nearly two months now!)

I thought I’d show off this baby blanket I made while in Hyderabad (Now I’m back in Cochin. Life is not in a very happy place, but very little can or will be done about that).

I had from various friends this sport-ish weight cotton yarn, and despite being from different sources, it coordinated very well (except for the grey in my opinion, but I used it up anyway). I’ve long wanted to use it in a pattern like this or this (Rav link) or this or this. I like the idea of stockinette for my blankets, for invariably I’m working with stashed yarns in single skeins and stockinette uses less yarn than garter does. Also, garter would be denser and therefore not suitable for a warm weather baby, as most of my recipients have been so far.

There are lovely garter stitch patterns out there, and I’ve considered trying to convert them to stockinette, but apparently my geometry skills aren’t up to it (there is another project which has become a (what is that word I’m looking for…oh this mommy-brain is irritating!) let’s say, favourite, go-to when I take the baby out, but I discover I never blogged it). So I was dithering as usual. I only took cotton with me to Hyderabad (too many parentheses in this here post, but my mind’s like that nowadays – except for some mystifying wool, mystifying in the sense of “why?”) and made sure to have the Paton’s Grace with me. And the Schachenmayr nomotta Catania, which is the grey.

Yarn: As I said, 4 skeins of Paton’s Grace and one of the Catania. The yarns are almost identical, except the latter had a few yards less (despite what the label says). This led to some innovative re-designing (I used the variegated in the corners of the monochrome squares, to make it a ‘design feature’, as I ran out of the grey with only about 6 rows (about 30 stitches) to go).

Pattern: Found here (there’s a PDF also available). Continuing my quest for most acreage out of a single skein, however, I wanted to have a stockinette based border rather than a garter one. I like the old shale (or feather and fan according to some descriptions) pattern, but only found it in triangular shawls or rectangular stoles. I needed help in figuring out how to turn corners and increase, so for that I turned to this pattern (Rav link). The designer was kind enough to send me the updated version with charts included. With this in front of me, I nicely mangled the corners. I used an entire skein for the border. Instead of having a purl row, I knit a knit row.

I quite liked the mitred squares, with no seaming and stitch counts that reduced at every other row. I might even make another blanket this way.

Needle: 3.25mm. You can do the body on straights, but you’d need a circular for the border, whichever pattern you chose for it, unless you want to seam some rows at the end.

Time: Just over a month, but that was because I realised after making the third square that I’d picked up stitches wrongly and had to frog and redo that square. I think it was also in the wrong colour perhaps.

Size: At 29″ square, it’s a respectable size for a newborn to be swaddled in and decent enough to serve as a covering for later. (Going by my newborn, at least). If you actually used DK or worsted weight as you ought to, you’d have a proper sized blanket.

Extra: I loved the pattern and the possibilities it offers. Plus, no seams to sew! Plus, stashbusting! Only that a certain person sent me a bucketload of cotton yarn she was destashing since, so that particular goal was negated.

The blanket has now gone to live in New York with a Raveller friend whom I met when she visited Kerala last year, and who is having a baby any time now. I think the colour scheme goes with what they’ve chosen.

I hope to return for my next post much sooner than I’ve been doing. Until then, hang in there!