It’s clear I have an obsession with making blankets. I really like to curl up in them and am assuming this is why they’ve become my favorite craft project.

This is the first blanket I made for Martian. I’m excited it’s one of the few blankets that I’ve made that will stay at our house, as most of them have been gifts. I originally started with cream, gray, and olive. It’s so hard to pick gender neutral colors. Once I got started the olive didn’t feel right so I dropped it and went with just cream and gray. (My photos came out very gray and white, but it’s actually much more cream.)

At some point while knitting the blanket I looked at the skein wrapper and realized it was hand wash only yarn. I had just picked the softest yarn I could find at JoAnne’s in colors that I liked. Whoops. Rookie mom mistake. I guess this will be more of a special occasion, photo blanket. I’ve already got a second knit blanket started in washable yarn.

I’m still trying to improve proportions. The intended dimensions of this one were 32 x 39 and it turned out to be about 29 x 44. At least I managed to get the stripes going the direction I intended them to go! Here is my model helping to show off the size of the blanket.

A few rows in, I realized I was going to have a mess of tails to knit in after I was done. Knitting all the tails in is my least favorite part of knitting by far and I hadn’t thought about how bad it would be by switching colors every two rows. The tails above are just from one gray and one cream stripe. I went in search of a better way and YouTube totally came through. I learned how to knit the tails in while you start the next color. It makes one side of the blanket ever so slightly more bulky, but it’s hard to tell. And very much worth the time savings. Love that I keep learning new techniques with each project.

I was hoping to share some photos of the baby’s room this week, but the awesome solar system mobile I ordered from Pottery Barn turned out to be huge and just didn’t work in the room. (Yes, we’re doing everything in our power to make sure this kid is a nerd.) I’ve moved on to plan B, but it will take a week or so for that to arrive and some time for me to put together and get hung up. Hopefully it will be ready before Martian makes his or her arrival, but I’m not stressing.

Instead a little peak of the blanket in the room, just waiting for it’s person to come home and snuggle. As we all are!

Project: 12/35 (I just turned 34 last Monday which means I have 12 months to complete 23 projects. Yeah.)
Time: 3 months of TV, plane, and road trip time
Tutorial: nothing for the knitting, but I used this video to learn how to knit in the ends as I went
Cost: $30 (six skeins of Paton’s Classic Wool Yarn, on sale for $4.99 each)