under a blanket of blue

A little over a year ago, I really got into knitting. I taught myself how to knit back in high school and really enjoyed it but I just got too busy with other things. I'm really glad that I picked up the needles again. It's become a huge stress relief outlet for me. And it's been really fun to knit stuff for other people. I'm giddy whenever I hear "did you make this?!?" after presenting a knitted gift to someone. I love that people still appreciate something that is made by hand. And I totally dig the "tis better to give than to receive" vibe. Of course, I love receiving gifts, who doesn't? But that warm fuzzy feeling you get when someone truly appreciates the effort and thought that went into the gift you gave them, whether homemade or not, is truly magical.

Everyone I know seems to be having a baby these days, so I've been knitting baby blankets like mad. Here's the latest one.


The pattern, made from soft and cozy Lion Brand Homespun yarn (one of my favourites) is dead simple and super fast to knit. It fits my knitting pattern criteria perfectly. I must be able to knit while enjoying red wine. If the pattern is so complicated that my imbibing could cause a major knitting catastrophe, it's no good to me. Also, it must be a fast project. I have a short attention span. If I can't finish it in a reasonable amount of time (dependent on the size of the item of course), I simply lose interest. Case in point, this cozy blanket that took me over a year to make. Whenever I got tired of it, I started another project, or two, or three...


My patient husband Steve was promised this blanket before Christmas 2005. He finally got it about a week ago. It's far from perfect - I made a lot of mistakes on this one while learning techniques that I had never attempted before. But hopefully, it was worth the wait.