Second baby blanket pictures

It is finally finished!

I have found that knitting with a deadline this time of the year is very hard. My free time is taken up with outside work, and I am too sleepy from the fresh air in the evenings to stay up and knit. Especially a project that is just knit stitches, I found myself falling asleep over my needles a couple of times.

Hereis the picture.

The pattern comes from the book Quick Knitted Afghans (HA!) published by House of White Birches. I really like many of the patterns in this book. This one called Warm and Cuddly Baby Afghan was designed by Uyvonne Bigham. It is a very simple pattern to knit once the four basic rows are memorized and a good one to pick up and put down, it is easy to see where you are in the pattern. So it is a good travel pattern.

Hereis a close up of the stitch pattern. Many people have commented that it looks like tiny fluer de leis.

The afghan is worked with two yarns, but unlike most colorwork, the yarn is not carried across the rows. Instead, you knit two rows with one color, slipping the stitch of the opposite color to give the illusion of multicolor work.

The side bands are not knitted until after the body of the afghan is complete. So eleven stitches are put on holders on either side of the afghan. When the body is complete, then the eleven stitches are knitted up to fit the side of the afghan. The pattern says to knit the whole band and sew it on, I chose to knit on short double pointed needles and when I was next to the afghan, I picked up the end stitch of the afghan, and combined it with one of the border stitches, either knitting two together, or passing the stitch over the extra one, depending which side of the afghan I was doing. The only thing I had to watch was that I was making a smooth seam up the edge, since the garter stitch with just one color could have a different gauge than the colorwork. I found mine was matching pretty much up row for row.

I already know the mother to be loves the pattern, this is the afghan I have to wrap up partially finished for the shower :) She still has another month to go before baby's due date, so I made my goal of getting it to her before the baby was born.

CW