Baby Blankie Gift Set!

Here is the complete baby blankie gift set, at last!

But first, to complete the baby blankie, I blocked it, taking care not to stretch it too much so it would keep it's shape:

After blocking, the blankie measured 24"x30". Next I pinned the blankie to a large piece of pink flannel and carefully cut out the flannel around it. With Coats and Clark pink thread, I painstakingly hand sewed the blankie to the flannel around the outer edges. I made sure to sew every loose bit of yarn onto the flannel around the edges so it wouldn't snag.

Then I pinned a pattern on the flannel side of the blankie and carefully sewed the flannel to the blankie according to the pattern I made. First I pinned about 2" in from the edges to create a box, and sewed that. Next, to make the center x pattern, I lay strips of paper down diagonally until a straight line is formed, and then stuck the strips of paper to the flannel using post-its (regular tape would fray the flannel too much when you pull it off). Then I pinned along the edge of the paper strips to create the line, removed the strips and sewed along the edge of the pins. This helps keep the blankie from sagging and keeps the flannel from separating from the knitting.

Finally, I arranged the hat, booties and blankie inside the box that I bought from a local craft store (Michael's). It has a magnetic strip on the top flap that keeps the box closed.

I'm thrilled with the way that it came out, and I have already started working on a blue gift set!

Finishing Touches and Baby Footsies

I'm 95% done with the bably blankie now; just finishing sewing the flannel on the back! I took a short break to make the rocket last week and that put me a little behind schedule, but all is well.

In the meantime, I finished making the baby footsies using the flower loom as instructed in Jennifer Stark's pattern @ http://guppylovesshark.wordpress.com/2011/03/02/flower-loom-footsies/ . It's the Bernat Baby Coordinates Baby Pink yarn, using the yarn double stranded 1 over 1 knit and purl stitches. They came out great!

I bought a sweet little gift box to pack my baby gifts in. Next week: the baby gift set will be complete!

Baby Blankie 80 Percent done

Here she is, fresh from the loom!

This is before I block it and add the flannel backing to it, which I finally decided I would do. I went to a local big box store and bought the flannel and some pink thread so I can sew the flannel to the back of the blankie, and then it will be done!

As far as the process of knitting it is concerned, here's how I did it. Using the blue straight loom with one additional corner peg, I knit off 1 over 2 stockinette stitches using Baby Bernat Coordinates Baby Pink and White yarns. After casting on using baby pink, for the top edge of the blankie I wrapped the odd pegs with the baby pink yarn and the even pegs with the white yarn and knit off for 20 rows. Then I snipped a 5" tail from the white yarn and wrapped the loom with the baby pink and began knitting off the bobble pattern. Here is the pattern below:

I used graph paper that I taped together so I had 61 boxes, the same number of pegs that I had on the loom. I then created the pattern by putting an "x" in each box that I wanted to bobble, and put the number of the box above the x. Then, on the loom, I used a pencil and marked the top of each peg that corresponded to an the "x" on one row on the graph paper the same number above the "x" box on the graph paper is the number of the beg that I marked to bobble), as you can see highlighted below:

I knit off 1 over 2 on the loom until I got to the peg I marked to bobble, where I knit off the same peg for 5 times and then placed the bottom loop back onto the loom and knit off, then I continued to knit off around the loom until I reached a bobble peg and repeat the process. It took quite a while since I had a limited amount of time to work on it each day, but the results were worth it. The pattern took 13 rows to complete, and in between each complete 13-row pattern I knit 4 straight stockinette stitch rows, just to add length to the blankie. I repeated the pattern in this way for 5 repetitions, then knit off 11 straight stockinette rows, then knit off 5 more pattern repetitions. Next I added the white yarn back in again to create the bottom pink and white blankie border, which I knit off for 10 rows. Finally, using only baby pink, I knit off 4 rows and cast off the blankie from the loom.

The reason I chose this pattern to bobble is when I was young I had a blanket that had a bobble pattern like this.

The next picture I post will be the completed blankie with the flannel added on the back.

Baby Blanket Progress!

So here's how the blankie looks now:

It measures 13" long. I am knitting the 6th repitition of the pattern; I plan on making 10 repetitions before finishing and blocking. Progress has been a lot slower than I anticipated, so I am making it my goal to complete 1 repitition per day. Until now I have been doing less than that with the amount of time I have to knit. Here is a better view of what the pattern looks like:

Simple bobble diamond shapes! When I was first knitting this, I wasn't sure if the pattern was going to look the way I wanted it to. The more I kept at it, the more I still was unsure. It wasn't until I took a photograph of it today that I can see that it worked out. Have you ever had that happen to you? You are working on a project for so long that you don't see how well it's coming out. That happens to me when I create artwork sometimes. Other times I know beyond the shdow of a doubt that it's coming out great (or horrible).

I'd like to complete this blanket before the end of next week, if possible. I still have matching booties to knit!

I also want to get started on another special summer project that won't take nearly as long, though I am creating the pattern from scratch. I've had the idea since last year but did not try it out because I couldn't create a good drawing for it, so I just moved on and worked on other things. Finally last week I was able to create a workable sketch to use as a guide for the pattern, and I'm pretty excited about making it! I think it's fun and different, hope you will too!

Baby Blanket Briefing and Book Blurb

Here's how the baby blanket is coming along so far:


At first I was going to stop at 5 repititions of the bobble pattern, but now I see that that is not enough. I am on the 4th repitition, and the blankt is only 8" long. I want it to be 18-20" long, so I will probably repeat the bobble pattern another 10 times before I finish it. I will also need another skein of yarn, since this one is running out faster with all the extra yarn used for bobbling. I lost some time working on it this week due to taking a break on Memorial Day, so I hope I can catch up soon.

I haven't decided if I want to sew a thin piece of pink or white flannel to the back of the blanket to give it a little more weight. Right now it is ideal for a light spring/summer/early fall wrap, but in winter it probably wouldn't be very warm. We'll see how I feel about it when I'm finished knitting it.

Over the past month I have been listening to Debbie Macomber's Blossom Street series on cd. I started with Summer on Blossom Street, thinking it came before Back on Blossom Street, since I didn't know the order she had written the books in. After a click on Wikipedia I found a list of the order the books were published in. Right now I am in the middle of Susannah's Garden. What I like about these books is that each novel can stand alone, even if you never read any of the others in the series. I'm reading them out of order since my library didn't have all of them as audio books, and I started with the one I could get first. So far it hasn't been too confusing reading them out of order. I also like Debbie's style of writing and the situations that the characters get into, though I must say that owning a yarn shop seems to be a favorite topic in these fiber-focused novels. I find myself getting engrossed in the storyline, eager to hear what happens next. So far I am about midway through Susannah's Garden; I'm going to see if the library has A Turn in the Road yet.

Have you read any of these in the series? What do you think of them?

Bobbly Baby Blanket!

Bobbly Baby Blanket... say that 5 times fast, I dare you! : )

Here's my progress on my baby blanket so far:

I am using the straight blue loom and knitting a flat panel on all pegs + 1 corner peg, using 1 over 2 stockinette stitches, and Bernat Baby Coordinates Baby Pink & White yarn. I created the alternating color blanket border the same method I used for the baby hat: wrap odd pegs with pink yarn, even pegs with white. So that the yarn doesn't get caught in little baby fingers easily I will sew a satin ribbon on the back, and this should also help control the curl that stockinette stitches always create. Using the pattern below created on graph paper, and using a pencil to mark the top of the pegs for each row of the pattern, I'm knitting off 5 repetitions of the bobble pattern, though if I need to make the blanket longer I will knit off more.

So far I have completed about 6 hours of work; marking the pegs and creating the bobble pattern takes longer to complete the project, as you might imagine. I have a few other ideas for how I might create this differently next time, but this is my first attempt and it is coming along fine. I hope to have it completed by the second week of June unless I get more time to work on it before then.

Here's a closeup of the bobble pattern; it was hard to get the lighting right for the shot, so I darkened the photo a bit:

I will have some better shots of the bobble stitches once the blanket is finished.