Hello, readers! Today we’re here to look at blankets. Baby blankets, to be precise, all for fresh new babies that are not mine.

The baby parade was announced last winter, and I have worked really hard to be intentional about gift knitting but say baby and I’ll get a blanket on the needles in a second.

I did some digging around in my stash and found enough hand dyed organic cotton to make a nice little Summer Sidewalk blanket by Fifty Four Ten Studio. Smol Bean also got one when he was a baby, and now he’s big enough to help add all the pins when blocking. Literally, all the pins, lol.

While I was rummaging, I noticed I had *ahem* rather a lot of Juniper Moon Zooey, a cotton-linen fingering weight yarn. Planning this blanket was becoming frustrating because I had some variegated, and some solid lime, and my first worry had been how to divvy that up. But as I started looking for a sufficiently sophisticated pattern that the parents of this particular baby would appreciate, I realized that all the blanket patterns I was finding were for worsted weight yarn. There was a fraught moment where I considered buying new yarn…and then it occurred to me that I had such an astonishing amount of this yarn that I could knit a blanket with two strands held double.

*sounds of my mind blowing*

So I did! It’s the Rectangular Colorblock Bias blanket from Purl Soho. I honestly do not remember the last time I knit double stranded and it was so fun. Not only did I blow through nine skeins of yarn, I made a really huge blanket with the squooshiest texture ever. As a delightful bonus, the pattern is written with a tidy stockinette edging that gives the whole thing a clean finish.

Last up is The Diamond Blocks blanket, which I had been planning in a vague way since…2016. Yes, I was carrying the idea for this project around in my brain for six years. The pattern, the yarn, knitting it for a baby, everything. With so much brain space given to this kind of thing, it’s no wonder I can never remember where I left my phone.

The blanket’s moment finally arrived, and it’s perfect. The pattern took a few repeats to memorize, but it is so lovely and I adore the way it looks knitted up in this round Aran weight cotton. I added an extra stitch to the edges, so I could slip it (a trick I learned from Heidi of Hands Occupied, thank you Heidi!) to give the garter edge a clean finish. I am so pleased, and I hope the recipient is too.

As I mentioned, I have largely moved away from gift knitting, but knitting these blankets was so much fun. I played with my stash in a way I haven’t in years, which was really freeing, as was seeing yarn move from potential into actual objects. I also reminded myself how much yarn can fit in one of those boxes for a square IKEA shelf. Together, these three blankets represent 3,851 yards of yarn, and there is still at least two tops’ worth of yarn in the Plant Fiber box. But I can see the bottom of the box now, and am motivated to get those tops onto the needles.

What projects have been reigniting your creativity lately?