Sassy Does It

It’s true that the only fire I really know about at the moment is the flame on my blogiversary candle, but that’ll do.  It’s one year today since I started blogging here.  Happy #1 to me!

And I am in New England, finishing with my business travel and now attempting to unwind from my little coil of stress.

Let’s start with the good news: oh joy, I’ve not only selected my next project, but have managed to decide on and actually purchase the yarn to go with it.  This is big progress for me; at the rate I was obsessing over yarn colors I thought I’d never pull the trigger.

After my kill-me-now meetings ended this afternoon, I was out like a shot toward a surrogate East Coast LYS to get down to some business that was actually interesting.

I’ve decided to make Fifi (downloadable on Ravelry, pattern link) from French Girl Knits.  I just like the look of it - fairly sophisticated as a souped up tee but without too many frills that would keep it in the closet instead of on me this summer.  There’s a time for being practical in choosing projects that I’m supposed to eventually wear, sadly, since most of the time I’m dressed for work and not for play. 

That said, this little number does hug things nicely - yes, I mean in the boob area - so I think that’s a point in the sexy column.  Under a jacket it’ll be fine for work, and should I ever make it to a happy hour again, this will be one of those day-to-night pieces that are always getting featured in magazines like Cosmo (or so they tell me).

I’ve linked to A Little Loopy’s version, as I think hers is fabulous.  Just about all the Fifis on Ravelry look better than the hokey picture of French Girl’s official one on their website.

Given the Ravelry raving over Rowan Calmer, I decided not to sub the yarn but rather to knit it with reckless abandon as designed.  Apparently the soft and slightly stretchy-clinginess is to die for, honey.

So.  Then it came to color picking.

I guess the colorway selection for this fiber is nice enough, but it felt too pastelly for me, or if not too pastelly then too full of colors that just don’t work on the pale-shanks likes of me; I just can’t kick it with bright coral or yellow or turquoise.

After shooting many options down, I had left in contention the Garnet shade (492) and the Tree shade (500).  Those two I liked.  But oh, how to decide?

I hemmed and hawed over this for several days (Googling and Raveling images of Rowan colorways like a banshee, nearly making a decision, then not).  At times like these, common wisdom says to go to your LYS to actually see the colors with your own eyes.

Which I tried to do on Saturday. 

I started out with a glorious midday stroll with Bidie-In through the farmers’ market, where I saw this bike.  

Ah, another reason to love California.

After this, I meandered into the LYS nearby.  Not only did I receive aloof and slightly put-out service in response to a couple of inquiries, but I also got denied in the colorway department because they didn’t have the ones I wanted to see.  Poor selection, sloppy displays, and crappy attitude.  Great.

I exited stage left, harrumphing away like a petulant child until a glass of wine at the German pub down the street made the world right again.

The wine had sparkles in it, which made me even happier.  I know that really this is called sediment, but I told myself they were delicious minerals that made my wine nutritious.

Then this business trip came up.  And then the unexpected early finish today - aha! - an opportunity to try another store today.  I did the finger-walking thing first and after a few stores not picking up the phone in the middle of their business hours (hello? how do you expect to sell things if nobody’s bloody home?), I found one that not only answered the phone, but also had my Calmer in both colors that had made it through to the championship rounds.

So I went to shop.  And oh, did I drool!  What a lovely store:  A Good Yarn.  Super nice people, and the most impressive little collection of fibers I’ve seen in ages.  I lingered for over an hour - so decadent, but I did it…because I could.

Tree beat out Garnet, although it was a squeaker in the end.  I liked both finalists (both slightly less intense than they seemed online, which was good - part of my hesitation with both, based on pics, was too much saturation), but I’ve decided I need to knit more green things.  Tree was just the shade I wanted.

I’ll be honest, I wasn’t sure I’d bite the bullet for full retail price when online discounts are just so rightthere; but, after hanging around like a rash for so long in the shop, my save-the-Local-Yarn-Store conscience kicked in.  A few bucks’ difference isn’t going to kill me, but my ten bucks more-than-I’d-pay-online plus a bunch of other people’s ten bucks more-than-they’d-pay-online could keep that store in business.

But only because it would be a shame if a store like this one weren’t in business.  I’ve been empathizing with Clumsy Knitter’s entertaining and well-written rants (here and here) over the poor quality of LYSes lately; I swear, some of them make it so difficult to love them.

I digress.

In the midst of my decision to buy, I came up a skein short.  The LYS lady (with the help of a few regulars who’d wandered in) rooted around in the back room trying to find one more skein of Tree in the same dye lot. 

Just when I thought my do-good LYS-loyal intentions would come to nothing, the girls came up with the goods.  And I whipped out the credit card.  It felt good.

Then I left, but came back because I realized a few blocks away (already in traffic) that I’d left my bluetooth headset thingy in there (it had fallen out of my purse because, like a dork, I’d left the purse unzipped while knocking it over, multiple times, all over the store; I kept setting it down to free my arms for full range of yarn-groping movement).

Then, I left the shop again, for serious. 

And then.

I got stuck in nightmare gridlock.  Not your average back-up, but indeed a parking lot, a log jam - call it what you will.  Many many cars going absolutely nowhere, with no alternative routes emerging.

Did I know, as they were ringing up my yarn,  that I was two blocks from Fenway when the Red Sox game ended and started spewing fans?

No I did not.

Ninety minutes and many honking horns later, I made it past those few clogged blocks just in time to enjoy - ahhhh, the normal rush hour traffic still remaining between me and my hotel.

Got my knickers in a right twist, but tried to enjoy the pretty sunset lighting as I watched free-swinging non-gridlocked people running along the water (much faster than I was moving) next to the fluttering white sails of little boats.  This scene was easy to observe in detail since I was sitting very still in my car, budging not an inch in any direction for long stretches of time. 

Sigh.

Did I mention I got some soft, beautiful, tree-green yarn today?  Before I can unwind any of it it, I’ll need a cocktail to finish off the unwinding of me.  Let me go on and do that.

I’ll raise a toast to my blog’s birthday while I’m at it.  Ooo, and maybe have some cake.

I’m glad Christmas is over, and I’m not sorry I said it.

I had a good Christmas, really, but I’m just so done with it this year.

One excellent byproduct of the holiday nuttiness, however, is a spanking new baby blanket.

Little K was born last week, so this hot potato is ready for assignment overseas.

Pattern: Curlicue

Yarn: Blue Sky Alapacas Dyed Cotton (organically grown) in colorway 617 (Lotus), four skeins (150 yds each)

Needle:  US 3 circulars, 29-inch

Finished dimensions:
28 inches wide, 35 inches long

Modifications: I added a three-stitch garter border to both ends of every row.  To my eye, this was needed to keep the symmetry of the scalloped borders as written.

Clarifications: If this one is in your queue, double-check on how to properly end the even-numbered rows here (the last repeat is finished off with a ssk WHICH REPLACES the final sk2p as written). If you’re clever enough to have worked this out on your own, I hope your prowess is contagious.

Ravelry links: my project, the designer’s pattern

Verdict: Happy.  Easy pattern that doesn’t look super-easy, and it flew on non-Turbo US 3s like you wouldn’t think it would do.  Honestly, I felt like I was knitting on much fatter needles, like 9s.

The finished size was just what I’d hoped it would be (always nice, especially when you go to the trouble of knitting a gauge swatch).

I’m happy with the drape as well - gentle yet consistent.

The fabric is very soft; warm and substantial-feeling while still having the lightness of cotton.  It’s the nice fat feeling of the Blue Sky Alpacas fiber that makes the magic happen.

The finished blanket blossomed nicely with a 20-minute Eucalan soak, and behaved well during the blocking that followed.

The only silly-Amy moment(s) came about in the dash to complete my final rows as my yarn was running out.

Seeing as it’s a baby blanket that lacks the requirement of an exact fit, I should have just stopped when I knew I wasn’t going to squeak out another 5 rows and quit the pattern a bit early to finish gracefully with the final 3 rows of garter stitch.

But I like to live dangerously.

And I figured that blocking would cure all evils if I happened to stretch the yarn (too) tightly to eke out the final rows for a photo finish at the end of my fourth and final skein.

I pulled *really* tightly and finished all rows of the final pattern repetition and the border with only a couple of inches to spare.

Woo-hoo!  I whipped out my Eucalan wash, soaked, patted, and blocked.

But.

There wasn’t enough ease left in the fabric at that far end of the blanket to be able to block any sense back into it:  the width pulled in on itself and started to suck the life out of the rest of the project.

I started having flashbacks to my first baby blanket, a.k.a. The Trapezoid.

No one was ever going to notice that the pattern ended a couple of rows early, not even me.  Duh.

So I blocked all but the crappy end and once the remainder of the blanket was off the board, I frogged back 5 rows and finished with the garter stitch border in a more civilized fashion.

That said, I left out the evidence of my pre-frogged tight end and saved up my photo shoot for the happier times.  Pictured above is the (still sloppy) unblocked but re-knit trouble area which I subsequently prettied up in a second round of targeted blocking.

Below are a few pics of my just-off-the-UPS-truck blocking tools in action.

The Fiber Fantasy blockers I described in my last post did not disappoint.

Along with the curly end of a flexible blocker from this set, the tip of one of the straight-edge blockers is pictured here, next to the happy yellow yardstick that comes with the package.

During the first go at blocking, I ran two super-longshanks rigid blockers down the straight sides and T-pinned them 28 inches apart to set an even width.

Then I threaded a flexible blocker down the not-too-tight shorter edge until I ran out of wire (accounting for the extra length consumed by the scalloped edges, this was about 3/4 of the way across).

I finished off weaving this edge with the second flexible blocker and then pinned down the curves to set the shape.  The second scalloped edge (too tightly knitted, wearing the dunce cap) had to wait until I fixed it before it could be similarly guided.

Here’s a close-up of a flexible blocker in action on the second end after the rip-out-and-redo (you can see that I only re-soaked the last few inches).

You weave the blockers through outermost stitch all along each edge, every half inch or so.

And then you hook yourself up with ship-shape corners by pinning squarely at the joining point.

After blocking, even the reverse of the fabric has a nice smooth look.

Beeteedubyuh, did ya notice my sexy new blocking board along the way here?

Ohhh, it’s delicious.  Boy, did I feel professional voodooing my work down into submission with those T-pins.

As you can see, she folds up real nice so that a gal like me can clean up after herself when the blocking’s done.  Or at least have the potential to…do that.

Some call it cluttered, I call it cozy: I’m currently happily surrounded by knitting items, both old and new, and I’m hunkering down to get some things done here.

In spite of my slight tendency toward bah-humbuginess this year, Santa was very kind.

It’s not about the gifts, I know, but my eyes did get all misty when I unwrapped a shiny new ball winder and a gorgeous swift to boot.  Eureka, my heavy hinting worked!

It’s all I really wanted, so I figured the hinting was justified.

If I don’t do it, birthdays get forgotten and it ends in tears.  It’d be easier if gifts weren’t even involved, you know?  But I digress.

I do like gifts.

Oh joy, I felt like a kid - as soon as it seemed socially acceptable to do so when everyone had finished opening gifts (I gave it about 30 seconds), I bee-lined for my knitting bag and whipped out an unballed hank of Mongolian Cashmere and got to work.  I just happened to have this on hand.  Just in case.

That swift spinning away with a steady whir and a gentle breeze was glorious.  After I got it going.

I wasn’t sure quite what to do since I hadn’t done it before, but I figured I’d better just stick the little end into the big end and go for it* (before Tommy came back and hit me over the head with a tack hammer).

I felt like Ralphie on Christmas morning with his new Red Ryder BB gun, with his dad standing over his shoulder asking him if he knows how to load it.  That kid had been dreaming about loading it for so long, he tuned out all extraneous noise, nodding and smiling (maybe drooling?) and just got down to the business of enjoying it.

And then he went outside and (almost) shot his eye out - but thank goodness I didn’t do that.

I did quickly get my fix, however, and then moved the new goodies to the corner (still where I could see them) while I watched Mamma Mia and squealed for nearly two hours like the girl I am.

Now on to the New Year.  I have absolutely no plans whatsoever to ring it in doing anything exciting, but that doesn’t mean that something couldn’t come up.

Right?

I could just knit it in while others are ringing it in.  That would do.  I’ve got a lot of projects coming down the pike (in theory), so that would suit me just fine.

Old. Boring. Lady.

Emphasis on the Lady, thank you very much.

Toodles, dears.  TTYL.

I’ve cast on something new. My poor second sock and Fisherman’s Sweater sigh collectively in their relegation to the bench. Sorry guys - I got distracted by a couple of balls of yarn in my stash, and I gave in to the ADD.

Speaking of. I can’t focus on telling you about my new project until I post a few pics that have recently grabbed my (fleeting, fickle) attention in the way of inspiring future knitting or sewing ventures.

The other day I was driving along and saw a billboard with a super-cute cowlneck sweater - didn’t get a great look, but long enough of one that I saw it was a Gap ad. Here’s what I saw, revealed again to me in more detail later online:

Cowlneck pullover, at Gap

Completely cute.  I’m such a sucker for cowls, I really really am.  I want everything to be available in a cowlneck.  So cozy, and so cool-looking.  This one is cotton knit, available in the color shown (”terrain”), charcoal, and heather gray.

“Cool-looking” is a bit vague (as well as juvenile, but there you go) - let me be more specific.  It looks sophisticated, to my eye; the way the fabric gracefully swirls into an artful arrangment, tossing light around, managing to look classy without trying too hard.  This Gap version is especially casual-looking with the i-cords and the short sleeves, paired with a striped long-sleeved tee.

If I were to knit this, I may want longer sleeves.  It’s a fine-gauge knit, which makes it even nicer-looking, but alas, more daunting to knit, which makes it less likely to happen.

I’m not saying I’m going to run out to the Gap to buy one ($34 isn’t hugely expensive, but…I’d rather get it on sale).  However.  They do have these available in Tall sizes, which is just so awesome, regardless of the fact that the sleeves aren’t actually long, such as to require a Tall size to make them longer for monkey arms.  The long torso would be fully covered, though - no inadvertent belly shots.  I feel like I should patronize Gap and Banana Republic more than my once-a-year average so that they keep the Talls in their portfolio.

Hmmm.  Maybe I need to buy one just for research purposes.  In case I get around to making a knock-off of my own, like in 30 years’ time.  Hmmmm.

All that joyful day-dreaming, just from one glance at a billboard.

In the not-quite-the-same-but-close category, the two designs below ended up under my gaze a few weeks ago via a banner on MSN.com.  Normally I don’t click on these things (I’m not usually that ga-ga about being fashion-forward), but what can I say?  I did.  These are definitely just eye candy for me as well:  the pretty little pictures clicked me through to Neiman Marcus, where my pocketbook doesn’t normally allow me to tread.  Anyhoodie:

Hooded cardigan, at Neiman Marcus

Sweater coat, at Neiman Marcus.

Did someone say hoodie?  The first one, on the left, looks soooo cozy. 

You can barely tell it has a hoodie from the front; not that there’s anything wrong with looking like you have a hoodie.  What I mean is that it has a very clean, simple look with straight yet soft lines on the front.  I like the hoodie-in-the-back part because it keeps the sweater from taking itself too seriously.  This kind of feels like a “business in the front, party in the back” cardigan - you know, like a mullet.  Except much, much, much less scary.

The price tag to obtain this look, however, at least from Neiman Marcus, is a wee bit steeper than a mullet.  This was priced at a few hundred bucks…cashmere blend, you see.

The price of the sweater coat on the right was approaching two thousand dollars (not in Monopoly money, either).  I didn’t bother to take specific note for a wish list of any kind because I’m a normal person and I wouldn’t go spending 2 Gs on a sweater coat, no matter how pretty it is.

But since very few of us are actually going to go out and buy it, let’s just skip ahead to talking about how pretty it is indeed, because that part is free.  I know what you’re saying:  another cowlneck?  Well, that’s what I thought at first, hence the initial draw.  But the item description said it’s an “attached scarf”, which I can see, upon closer inspection.  This too, is knit in cashmere.  I don’t care if it’s cashmere or not (although if I had the money to burn - I’ll take the cashmere) - I just really really like the design.  In a more durable fiber, this would be a great go-to, wear-it-all-the-time staple.  I love the look, and it would be fairly easy to construct something similar on the fly, I think.

The last design that caught my eye recently is one would be in the sewing vein.

 

Tweed dress, at Neiman Marcus

Tell me, is this not the cutest little dress you ever did see?

Not so much in a garden-party summer dress kind of way, but more in a polished, I’m-feeling-quite-pulled-together-today kind of way.  Now I’m not a size 0, which I’m sure is the size the model is sporting (my booty can only occasionally squeeze into a single-digit size…well, maybe less than occasionally; in theory, I guess it could, like if I quit eating for a couple of weeks), but I think this could be a flattering size on anyone.  Almost anyone.  The shoulders would have to be a bit broader than average to accomodate my frame, especially with the cap sleeves (which very often on me look like a mistake, perhaps the result of a good shrinking in the dryer).  But.  If I were to embark on, say, a sewing project (bringing my machine out of the hibernation it’s been in for the last year or so), I could make it to fit.

So.  The snaps above have been inspiring me as I think about projects on the horizon.

Back to the project I’ve cast on.

I discovered Wendy Bernard’s website, Knit and Tonic, via MLE’s blog (MLE Knits - love Emily - get it?  M-L-E …emmm-elllll-eeeeee).  Wendy is the author of recently-released and already very popular Custom Knits, which MLE reviewed here, and I think looks like a great book.  It’s now on my Amazon Wish List, where all my dreamy pattern books hang out until I can afford to tell the boys over at Amazon to pick it off the shelf and send it - rescuing it for my exclusive perusal.

Wendy is great.  She’s got a daughter that’s only a bit older than my niece Maizy.  She calls her daughter Girlfriend, which I love.  Her writing is so much fun to read; you feel like you know her.  She’s fabulous yet not imtimidating.  Her photos of projects are well-considered and creative; often the photo seems more like a potrait being created, it so happens, whilst the model is engaged in some kind of activity fitting with the knit design (à la Rowan - you know what I mean).  Her snapshots make me feel like I’ve been pulled into her movie set.  [Director's notes in the margin: Gorgeous yet down-to-earth woman enters stage left; she walks gracefully through her lovely, bright, inviting home, adorable daughter in tow.  She moves through to the garden, peering over her shoulder into the camera's lens as the stunning knitwear she wears catches the glowing light of dusk, the scene thus enhanced by the play of light and shadows.]

In other words, she’s hot stuff.  Oh, and did I mention that these knits as featured are of her own design?  Yeah, that’s right.  She also has a few patterns that are free, which I’ll get to in a minute.

Needless to say, her blog is quite popular.  There’s a lot to look at.  I started with the links under her Photo Album section in the left sidebar, which drew me in with links called The Winners and The Losers: her buckets for categorizing FOs.

The Zephyr Gals, at ZephyrStyle.com, promoting the 2008 Race for the Cure

I discovered the Zephyr gals while stalking visiting Wendy’s site.  One look and I knew these two were my kind of chicas.  They are the starter-uppers of Zephyr Style, a site through which they offer great original knitting designs (I liked Green Gable, which I’d initially seen on Wendy’s blog). 

The Zephyr Style blog is located here, just in case, like me, you’d like to lurk for a long, long time get to know them.

My heavens, I keep getting distracted.

Here’s the start of my new project - hopefully off the needles very soon because it was only meant to be a quickie:

Beginning of Short Snort Girlfriend Tank, by Wendy Tan (KnitandTonic.com)

It’s Wendy’s Short Snort Girlfriend Tank, available for free on her Knit and Tonic site.

Simple pattern, but fun.  Upon seeing it I became inspired to find a loving knit-home for two balls of Louisa Harding Coquette that I’d picked up on clearance a few weeks back.  At 73 yards each, this amount wasn’t going to make much, but the wee sparkles were calling my name at the time.  Or rather, Maizy’s name, since she is the person I thought would enjoy them the most.

I didn’t have quite enough to make the tank completely in Coquette, so I thought perhaps I’d stripe it by mixing in some run-of-the-mill white.  I swatched it and liked what I saw.  Even if it’d be a bit more work, I decided it would be worth it.

See how it sparkles?

The gauge was spot-on with the two fibers held together, and pretty darn close with just the white (standard baby-weight acrylic left over from a previous project - the label is long gone).  I decided it would be funky to alternate fairly randomly between white, blue, and both colors combined.   The gauge with the skinny blue-sparkles fiber alone (a.k.a. Coquette) was a little peek-a-boo on my size US 6 needles, but a couple rows here and there seemed to give it a fun texture.  Why not?

So far so good.  I really like it.  The project’s not a major commitment at under 250 yds total, but little things can be fun.  Plus, they look bigger on a pre-schooler.  It may be getting a little cool in Colorado (where Maizy lives) to go around wearing only a tank, but she likes to layer, so she can work this look even through the snowy season.

I’d better blog off - time flies.  Especially when you spend a good chunk of your evening drooling all over the Anthropologie website (releasing pent-up desire after a brief and fortunately inexpensive trip there with Sissy B while we were together recently).

During that trip to Anthropologie, we got two of these mugs (on clearance, of course; my aforementioned pocketbook can’t handle that store on a regular basis, either).  The idea was that we could each have a cup, one half of the twin set, from which to sip our tea and think happy thoughts about our visit - later, when we’re miles apart.

(long, happy sigh)

Then Maizy, who upon fervent request and subsquent cautioning took on the task of carrying the bag with my cup in it, took a bit of a spill as we were walking to the car, bless her heart. She’d been multi-tasking: bag in one hand, my wallet in the other, and my phone - in the locked and off position - anchored in the crook of her neck as she carried on a very serious one-sided conversation with an imaginary version of a family friend.

Poor thing.  We had boo-boo scrapes on each hand.  Cup…was kind enough to break her fall. Not so much in one piece anymore, darn it.

Awwwww.  No biggie, I said.  Sissy B was sad.  Really, it’s OK, I said.  Small potatoes!  Sissy B later went back to the store, unbeknownst to me.  She returned with another bag containing another cup, all wrapped up in one piece.

“Some things just have to be remedied, sis.”

(warm smile, then muffled sniffle)

Love you, sis.

Oh, joy - a Monday without work.  At least work work, the kind that involves a commute.  Mostly I’ve had a down-low kind of weekend, and I’ve managed to milk it by keeping the lethargy theme steady throughout today.

This weekend I’ve alternated time between knitting (halfway done with that second sock), looking at knitting patterns, and being cozy with family.  The knitting patterns I focused on yesterday were of the baby blanket variety.  One of my closest friends is due with her second baby late this year, and although I don’t know if the baby is a little he or a little she, I figure it’s time to get poised with at least a pattern, if not the yarn and/or a decision to go with a happy unisex color or colors.

I’ve made a couple of baby blankets, the second and more successful of which I posted about here.  The first one, while very nice to the touch and just lovely when folded, was a little challenged in the way of symmetry. 

Aha! I've come back to haunt you from 10th grade geometry.

It came out trapezoidal.  That is, in the shape of a trapezoid.

I had decided to knit the Favorite Blue/White Blanket, a Bernat pattern available for free.  This was the third or fourth knitting project I’d ever attempted - the first blanket, and the first thing not to be made on fairly big needles with a fairly bulky fiber.  It was certainly my first baby item, and I was very nervous about the delicateness of it all.  

Favorite Blue/White Blanket

The US 7 and US 8 needles to be used seemed teensy weensy to me, and as much as I was determined to make a go of this pattern, I found that the notion of casting on more than 60 stitches made me sweat a little.  I decided not to tempt fate in altering the recommended yarn (it didn’t occur to me then that gauge isn’t quite as important for a blanket as it is for a sweater).  I used Baby Softee as instructed, in, you guessed it, blue and white.   It seemed to me if the pattern is called Favorite Blue/White Blanket, better not to mess with Texas.  Blue and white it was.  Good thing the baby in question was a boy.

The trapezoid FO was the obvious result of nerve-induced too-tight tension on the starting end of the blanket.  The stitch was actually very pretty - nice texture, yielding a lightweight fabric that wasn’t too lacy or fussy - but it took me days to get through the first couple of rows.  This wasn’t because the stitch was difficult, but because I was inadvertently pulling each stitch so tightly that none of them would slide down the needle without a lot of elbow grease.  An obvious fix, you say (duh, stop pulling them so tight), but I just thought that these were the inevitable and wily ways of working with smaller needles. 

With progress, my stitches gradually yet increasingly relaxed.  By the end of the blanket, my stitches were loosey-goosey, happily flying off the needles.  Didn’t really dawn on me until it was done that it was a leetle off from a rectangle.  Even blocking couldn’t bring it back into shape - but oh well, it was done, and the myriad of stitches I’d made were ready to embrace that little newborn, no matter how asthetically imperfect the collective whole of the stitches might have been.

I packed the blanket up and sent it off with love to the adorable Q and his mom, who is one and the same Kimlee I visited in Richmond recently.  She was very gracious about the trapezoidal nature of the blanket, and made me feel good about the uniqueness of my humble handicraft.  It made my heart sing when, during my recent visit, I noticed the Blue/White Trapezoid draped across the rocking chair in the nursery.  I took a few surreptitious snaps while everyone was downstairs, and brushed away a little tear of joy at the sweetness of finding it there.

I know, I’m a sap.

So.  Now I’m looking at patterns for the next blanket up to face the vice-like grip of my needles.  Below are my finalists.  Colors may depend on baby gender…or maybe not.  Suggestions welcome on color or fiber, but it’s the pattern that I need to settle on first.  Help me choose! 

Please drop me a comment below with your favorite pattern, or at least your favorite category: 

1. Something with cables
2. Something lacy
3. Something blocky

 Just click on each pic for a closer look.

Something with cables:

Endora
Berocco.com

Shower of Love
Leisure Arts #3219

Aran Blanket
Knit Baby Blankets!

Something lacy:

Summer Blanket
24-25-48, Gosyo Co., Ltd

Curlicue Blanket
Skruddevutts stickade

Something blocky:

Moderne Baby Blanket
Mason-Dixon Knitting

Color Block Baby Blanket
Knit It! Magazine, Spring 2007