A Tale of Two Blankets

I've been busy with baby blankets. I had one friend with a baby due in June and another due in September. I knew the June baby was a girl but the mother was not big on pink. I picked a very soft lavender and I was in the mood for lace. The parents of the baby are from the UK so I thought I would try and turn the "Rose of England" from Marianne Kinzel's "Second Book of Modern Lace Knitting" into a blanket.

I wanted a square blanket so I knit the main part of the circle and then tried to square it up with some short rows. It was a good thing I started the blanket early. I knew that once the rounds got to be over 300 stitches it would be slow work.

With well over 1000 stitches on the needle it was hard to tell what shape it would turn out. I ended up with more material than I needed on the edge making it a loose, drapey square. The baby kindly gave me an extra two weeks to finish so I did get it done before she was born.

It is a very large blanket. It could probably double as a shawl or maybe a tablecloth.

Blanket number two is very different. The baby's mother is a knitter and when she found out I planned to make her a blanket she asked if I could make the "Sleep Baby Sleep" blanket from "Nursery Rhyme Knits" by Teresa Boyer. She loved the blanket but felt it was beyond her ability. Always being up for a challenge, I purchased yarn.

At first glance I thought, "it's a fairisle pattern, I've done that before". This was not entirely true. I've done fairisle in the round so you don't have to chart on the purl side and there were always only two colors in a single row. This blanket is knit flat, gotta purl, and there are some rows with three or four colors. It is a real challenge trying to keep an even tension.

While the rows are not that long and it goes fairly quickly when I actually sit down and work on it, the trouble has been actually sitting down and working on it. So here I am again, baby could come any time, and I'm not done.

This is what it should look like when finished.

In a fit of silliness we considered changing the verses to see if anyone would notice. My 5 year old daughter suggested the following:

Sleep baby sleep

Don't poop in your pants

Sleep baby sleep

I thought that might stick out.

This evening I was pretty tired and ready to go to sleep at 9:00. My daughter was not. After a two hour struggle she was asleep and I was wide awake. With the brilliance (and complete silliness) that only insomnia can bring I came up with my own version of the blanket. It is much more modern and each progressive verse works for a different age.

If it weren't so hard, I'd make them both. ;)