Finished Object: "Sampler Baby Blanket" from Vogue

Pattern: "Sampler Blanket" from Vogue Knitting on the Go: Baby Blankets Two
Yarn: Dalegarn - Dale Baby Ull (superwash merino wool) It's really soft and I like it a lot. I'd never used it before, but the owner of my LYS (i.e., Rita at Downtown Yarns) helped me pick it out, based on the specs for the yarn used in the pattern.
No. of skeins used: 9
Color: It's slightly off-white. The color no. is 0020 (provided "Farge" means "color" in Norwegian).
Needles: no. 3 bamboo straights
Finished Size: 54"/137cm long by 36"/91cm wide* (point to point)

My cousin (who is like a brother to me) and his wife are not able to have children of their own, so they decided to adopt a child from Kazakhstan. That's pretty far to go for a kid - I mean, from their hotel room, they had "an intense view of the Tien Shan Mountains bordering China." That's FAR. My cousin is awesome and I love him dearly, plus his mother, my Auntie Jan, is an incredibly talented and crafty person. She's the one who taught me how to crochet (and latch-hook and embroider...) when I was a wee tot myself. Needless to say, I wanted this to be an Extra Special blanket.

My cousin and his wife left for Kazakhstan on March 17, and I started this blanket around that time. I officially finished it today, May 6. Tonight I bring it to JFK Airport to give it to them when they arrive with their precious new 15 month-old daughter, Hailee.

I zeroed in on this project because I'm a Gemini and I'm prone to get bored with big projects that don't have much variation.

It's 35 panels in total, comprised of 8 different patterns. What was really awesome about this project was that while I was working on the panels, it was totally portable.
Another reason why my being a Gemini is significant: yes, I get bored easily, but I also have a hard time realizing how much work I'll have to do on a certain project. Separate panels? Wheeee! But I didn't take into account that I would also have to crochet a border around every. single. panel. Crocheting isn't my forte as I haven't done it in years, but the Vogue book had excellent directions (with pictures), plus it really did make for easier construction.

And THEN I had to sew them all together.

And THEN I had to knit the border. Fortunately, I had enough sense to put the remaining stitches on a holder lest it not be long enough. I ended up having to do another three repeats of the pattern in order for it to fit. But it fit perfectly.


And THEN I had to weave in all the ends. This is my most leastest favorite part of any project. If you hate weaving in the ends as much as I do, then this is NOT the blanket for you. Suffice it to say, I finished it and that's over with.

Blocking
It's on a towel that's on that foam posterboard stuff (four panels joined together with packing tape). The Office Knitting Goddess told me that metal pins are likely to leave rust marks on the blanket. Since this is a whitish blanket, and considering all the work I put into it:

Yes, those are toothpicks.

I live in a tiny New York City shoebox, plus I have a kitty who likes to shred shred shred. However, I do have about a foot of space between my kitchen cupboards and the ceiling so I lodged it up there out of my kitty's reach (she's not much of a jumper) and off my bed so that I could sleep!

I machine-washed it on the "delicate" setting at the local laundromat using Kookaburra Delicate Woolwash from KnitPicks. It's so soft. I think I'm going to buy a vat of this stuff.

And voila!!






Notes
I'm thrilled with how it came out, but I wish I had given myself more time. I have been working on this almost non-stop since mid-March. My weekend activities have been virtually non-existent and my apartment is a mess. If anyone who plans to make this blanket would like some unsolicited advice, I strongly suggest you start as soon as possible, like, at the moment of conception. O_o

I didn't use all the exact same dye-lot as there just wasn't enough available. When I spread the blanket out under bright light I could totally tell the difference between the different dye-lots!! D'oh! Fortunately, it lends itself well to the antique-y look of it, in my opinion, but it just goes to show that it really is a big deal to use yarns that are all from the same dye-lot. It definitely matters even if the person at the LYS tells you otherwise.

Size-wise, it came out larger than the dimensions given for the book, which is 37"/94cm long by 28"/71cm wide! Obviously, the specs for the yarn I used vs the yarn used in the book weren't all that similar. But it's a blanket, so, it's not such a big deal (right?!).

As to the level of difficulty, it's labeled "Experienced," ["...complicated shaping and finishing."] but I didn't think it was that bad. The patterns were pretty straightforward. The only pattern I had any real difficulty with was this one:


The pattern for it reads:
CO 29 sts.
Row 1 (RS): Knit
Rows 2, 4, 6: Purl
Rows 3, 5, 7: K2, *k5, sl 5 wyif; rep from * to last 7 sts, k7
Row 8: P9, *with RH needle in front of work, insert needle under 3 loose strands (from bottom to top) and p these 3 strands tog, p1, pass the p3tog over p1, p9; rep from * to end.
Rows 9, 11, 13: K2, *sl 5 wyif, k5; rep from * to last 7 sts, sl 5 wyif, k2
Rows 10 and 12: Purl
Row 14: *insert RH needle under 3 loose strands on RS of work, yo and draw up a lp, purl next st and sl lp just made over purl st, p9; rep from *, end last rep with p4. [WHAT. What about the loose strands? O_o]
Next row: knit
Next row: purl
Bind off.

Obviously, it's Row 14 that's contentious. I couldn't get it to work so I just adapted Row 8. I'm not sure if there's a mistake in there or anything. Someone made a version of this very blanket for display at Knit New York - I examined their version of the bowtie pattern square and it didn't look any different from what I did! LOL!

It's been a lot of work, but I chose it because I so love texture and I love to experiment and try out new stuff. In fact, I was working on it in Starbucks one day on my lunch hour and this weird older lady was suddenly standing over me, examining my work. She said she taught knitting and asked what I was making; when I told her she said, "Pfft. I always make 'em in one piece. It's much easier that way and you get 'em done faster!" And I was thinking, "Well, where's the fun in that? I'm doing this for the love of the craft, not for how long it'll take me to do it." Sheesh. I didn't say that out loud - apparently my stony silence was enough to get her to slink away. mwahahahahahahahaa.

Thank you for reading and indulging me! ^_^