I've never really thought about making a blanket. Well, that's a lie. I have thought about making a blanket. But as I've told many people, big projects tend to bore me somewhat. There's something daunting about several feet's worth of 143 stitches, especially when you have the bright idea to make up the yarn pattern yourself.
When my best friend Amanda mailed me a ginormous box of yarn she insisted she was going to use, the box included three skeins of Plymouth Encore Colorspun Worsted in Aqua/Pinkfst. It was a decent amount of yarn, and I'll be honest, not my particular style as far as color goes, so that's when the idea for a blanket came up.
Now, here's the catch.
Having never made a blanket before, I greatly underestimated exactly how much yarn making a blanket was going to take.
One-and-a-half skeins in, I had a foot-long blanket and all I could think about was, "Crap. Now I gotta find more of this yarn."
I went to the only LYS in Macon — Creative Yarns — and checked out its stock. Well, issue. They had exactly one skein of the color I needed. Plenty of that type of yarn, but in a gazillion other shades. So J (who went yarn shopping with me; I was so excited) found two complementary colorways that would go with the one I had, and thus my improvisation for a striped pastel pattern emerged:
Surprisingly, it was pretty easy to knit. Aside from accidentally ribbing instead of checkerribbing on a portion of the first row, and two accidental pulls where it got caught during moving last month, I think it turned out OK!
Definitely learned a few blanket-making lessons though.
No. 1, of course, being to have like, three times as much yarn as you think you'll need, because two skeins ain't gonna cut it.
This blanket's for sale, because like I said, I knitted it so I could use up all the yarn (and then the other four skeins I bought) Amanda sent me. So if ya know of anyone in the market for a pastel blanket, check out the Knits for Sale page on the website. Seriously ... it needs another home besides my loft. :D