Prelude | Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four | Part Five
This blanket was a long time in the making, and no mistake. I started on 13 July and finished on 29 September. This was mostly because there were bursts of activity and then long pauses. But baby gifts come with a deadline, so I had to get my act together and push through to the end.
Throughout the knit I’ve been saying ‘it’ll block out just fine’ but I didn’t truly believe that until I saw it with my own eyes. It was a crazy transformation, which I’ve tried to document.
It came off the needles folded completely in half. As I was still knitting, G (in all sincerity) asked ‘are you making a bag?’. Here it is, freshly finished:
A bit of a shake (by which I mean vigorous shaking, flattening and pleading) did flatten it out, but there was still a very tall mountain in the middle:
It was on the wrong side, too, so it would be difficult to sell as a feature.
I have it a bath with some Soak, then spun it dry in the machine. It’s a superwash merino that says ‘do not soak’ on the label but I wanted it to loosen and grow, so I disregarded the instructions. Immediately upon coming out of the machine, it had gained a lot of chill and looked like this:
There was still a volcano in the middle, as one Ravelry maker called it, but much less. Here’s the overhead view before and after soak and spin.
Then I fed blocking wires through each side (they were just the right length!) and pinned aggressively. Once dry, I gave it a gentle steam, to try and get a bit of length into those leaves. I felt that the blocking had made them look squat.
While we’re talking about the leaves: yes, I closed up the yarn overs by knitting them through the back loops, so they don’t have the lacy appearance that the pattern intended. This wasn’t really done on purpose, I just got into the way of knitting those back loops on the increase stitches. But it’s consistent and I always feel a bit wary of holes in baby blankets anyway.
Once again, blocking is a wonderful household magic of which I will never tire.
Also, behold the long-awaited owls!
I finished with six rows of garter before binding off, adding some stretch with a yo in every third bind-off stitch. I later un-did tit bind off and re-did with an Icelandic bind off, which I thought would give extra stretch. Honestly I’m not sure if it did! But it looked really neat and tidy.
I realised after I’d finished all the garter rows (with 524 stitches in each row, mind you) that I hadn’t increased at the corners to keep the square shape… It looked alright but Idid notice, once off the wires, that those corners curled in a little (and that the middle wanted to stand up again). That’s why I changed the bind off and I was a bit happier with it after that, though honestly it looked better on the wires than off! So often the way.
This is the Olympic Forest Baby Blanket (Ravelry link) by Verybusymonkey Designs (Designer’s site). I made it in Drops Merino Extra Fine in Forest (appropriate), and used a 4mm circular needle throughout. I used up 343g of yarn, which in this instance is about 720 yards. 43g of that was used up just in the final six garter rows plus bind off.
The Crafty Yarnster 