I decided to call it "Best Baby Blankets," because I was very selective about what sorts of patterns made the book. I am going for easy to knit, not holey (tiny fingers, folks), not fringey or loopy (ditto, little fingers), washable, and lie flat. I also wanted each pattern to be interesting to make, either providing an interesting technique lesson or a little different way of doing things.
John and I chose the cover theme pretty easily - a photo of the stitch pattern from a project that we took to the last two seminars can be the background. This blanket seems to be everyone's favorite. Knitters kept asking John which book had the pattern, and he kept saying, "She's working on it. It's not out yet." Naturally, John has "reminded" me a number of times to get this book finished! This colorful blanket was made with a lot of scraps of baby pastels, and I knitted a fold-over edging that I sewed down very easily, using the sewing machine for the purl side and hand sewing the knit side. It looks great, with all the sewing thread vanishing into the thickness of the blanket, and the knit side has cute little scallops. You could have the nifty little scallops on both sides, if you wanted to hand sew the purl side instead of using the sewing machine. My favorite part was I didn't have to hide all the color-change ends - I just tied them, cut them, and let them vanish inside the edging! The edging goes around curves and corners just fine, too.Getting a book done takes me a long time. Even during a very busy spring with three seminars and a lot of challenges at my day job, I was enjoying working up the new designs, doing as much knitting and redoing as necessary until I was satisfied. Next, I filmed, edited video (which isn't quite finished yet). Next, type out the patterns, take photos, make diagrams, and edit.
This was an extremely fun project. I went off my original plan because I just wanted to make baby blankets while my club was doing them for charity, and pretty soon I had a nice collection of interesting ones. It's almost too much fun to stop.
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Like a lot of knitters I knit for charities. What I'm thinking is that the beautiful coloured blanket you are teasing us with in the photo, would be a lovely pattern for a lap blanket. I knit a few things for a nursing home at Christmas and think that's a perfect present to send there. Perhaps an option to up or down size the baby blankets to make them suitable for lap blankets might be useful. I know some of the baby blankets on your site already are suitable as a cot blanket, therefore, a lot larger than a little receiving blanket. That why I'm unsure if you would go larger or smaller for a lap blanket. I'm excited about the next book already!
ReplyDeleteI am just starting one of the two of the twirl blanket and I am so happy to have your book and video to review the steps. I made several last year. Now I have several babies to make more due in December. Now I look at your postings and I see you are making a new one just for baby blankets. I can't wait to buy it. I am ready! So glad that I looed at your site tonight. Maybe I will wait and see when it will be ready for my 2nd one that I need to make. I love the ruffle idea for the edging too. So pretty. Thanks for working hard and coming up with new ideas. I will check regularly to see when it is available. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteValery Roberts
San Diego