When my brother announced that he was expecting his fifth child I was so happy for him... but also a little bummed out because it meant I had to knit another baby blanket. I sort of have a love/hate relationship with baby blankets. On the love side, I like having something really special to give the new little bundles of joy and their parents. On the hate side, they always take a long time to knit and tend to be either super boring or super tedious... so, you can understand why I was feeling a little anxious about the idea of knitting another one. Then I visited my Ravelry queue and found this pattern that I had saved a long time ago. The rainbow made me happy, not anxious - so it was the pattern for me!
Here is the blanket all spread out. It was huge! I could barely get it all in one shot. And would you believe that I didn't pull out a measuring tape and measure it before I gave it away? Oops!
The best part about this blanket is the yarn. I totally splurged on it, but it was worth it. I used nine different colors of Knit Picks Shine Sport. I love how soft this yarn is and the color selection is fantastic. Each stripe ended up using just barely over one ball of yarn. If I were to ever knit this again, I would modify the pattern so that I can make it slightly smaller and only use one ball of each color. This would have saved me boatloads of money. (But then I wouldn't have lots of soft rainbow yarn left over to play with!)
yarn details
Knit Picks Shine Sport in Blush, Clementine, Crocus, Dandelion, French Blue, Green Apple, Peapod, Reef, and Serrano
worsted weight
60% Pima Cotton, 40% Modal
Machine Wash, Tumble Dry Low
110 yards / 50 grams @ $2.99 each
project details
pattern: "Rainbow Baby Blanket" by Patsy Leatherbury
needles: size 7 nickle plated circs
gauge: who swatches for a baby blanket?
yarn used: 1.059 yards -- (about 123 yards of the pink and red; the rest of the yarn was approx. 115 yards each)
finished size: didn't remember to measure :(
duration: January 13 - March 29, 2015 (I respond well to deadlines)
notes
- Used Russian joins when joining two balls of the same color together; didn't do anything special when changing colors - just left ends and wove them in at the end (I made sure to split the yarn a lot when I was weaving them in. Still, this yarn is so slippery, I'm sure those ends will work their way out quickly!)
- Like I said above, if I knit this again, I would modify this pattern to only use like 100-110 yards per color so I didn't have to buy an extra ball for those extra 10 yards needed to complete each stripe.
- I absolutely love the drape of this yarn for this project. Definitely recommend it!
Labels: baby, Finished Objects, knitted gifts, rainbow baby blanket
