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Would you believe this is the first time I’ve ever designed a blanket for a baby girl?  The process was funny for me this time because with all the little boys I’ve been knitting for, my biggest gripe was that everything was too pretty.  When I started this design I found myself griping about not being pretty enough and I knitted and frogged (rip-it, rip-it) so many iterations that I wasn’t sure if the yarn was still usable.

My first try was a single strand of peach with the same needles I used for the Knitted Broomstick Lace Scarf, but Annabelle will be a January baby and I wanted to be sure she’d be warm.

Then I tried holding the yarn double and bumping up to US size 8 and the big US 36′s I used for the Knit Broomstick Lace Wrap. This time, however the blanket was much too thick.  In fact I knitted a whole skein this way and when I looked at the skinny little section I had, I knew I wasn’t on the right track.

Frogging this time was a bit of a challenge because I had to separate the yarns and re-wind them as a single.

Next, I decided that the answer was 6 gathered loops using the US size 6 and size 36 needles, and set out knitting.  When I got almost to the end of the ball (that use to be the first skein), I knew I didn’t have enough yarn.  To make matters worse, I had been messing around for so long I couldn’t find the ball band to match dye-lots.  ARGGGGH!

So I resigned myself to adding a contrasting color, but I knew simply switching colors wasn’t going to look good.  You guessed it… I tore it all out – again.

But, as you can see, I finally figured everything out and have a unique stripe pattern in the blanket to show for it.  Knitting with 3 skeins at once might seem a little odd, but by switching between them and carrying the extra yarn along the edges the 4 row repeat turned into the stripes you see in the finished blanket.

Although the pattern gives directions for recreating this blanket exactly, you could probably get a similar effect by using a self-striping yarn if you’re not excited about alternating skeins.

The finished size is approximately 31” by 30” but the blanket has a lot of stretch in both directions.

As with my other patterns, you may use this pattern to create finished objects for sale. Please see Begone, Personal-Use only patterns for details.