stranded in stockholm

Finally a pair of gloves that I didn't give up on! I thought I had a jinx when it came to me and knitting hand wear. This pattern came along, and I enjoyed working these from start to finish. Similar to the experience I had with the other pattern I've made from Ysolda's Knitworthy collection, Mitbringsel results in a lovely pair of fingerless gloves that I am loathe to give away.

One of the things I've found I like best about these patterns (besides the smashing designs) is that I learn something new with each one. These gloves start out with a really intriguing i-cord technique that makes stitching up four fingers at once a breeze. Unrelated to the pattern, but due to the fact that I don't have dpns in a size 8, I also taught myself how to work in the round using the magic loop technique. It really is magic! Once you get the hang of wrangling the tangle of cord it is actually very easy. I also watched a nice video (from verypink.com, love those) that helped me avoid ladders at the gap before they were ever a problem. 

The other big thing I learned that I've been wanting to try out is stranded colorwork. It has always seemed a bit intimidating and for super advanced folks, but this small project with aran weight yarn made it very approachable and easy. As if magic loop and i-cord fingers weren't enough. Before I knew it I had breezed through the first chart and was well into the second. 

And then it just kept on growing! With each row being different and the pattern showing through as I went the inches went by and I was quickly down to the garter stitch cuff on the first glove. I changed one thing about this design, and that is simply the specifics of where the colors were used. I wanted to use up some leftovers that I had limited yardage of so I switched the color of the finger section to match the cuff to avoid running out of the dark brown. 

All three yarns are single ply fluffy wool so they ended up playing together very well. The gloves are thick and warm due to the floats behind the stitching which make it basically double thick. They will be very warm, I'm sure! I made these for a friend who is moving to Stockholm in January, so I am hoping they will be effective and useful. She is originally from Sweden but has been living here in California for a few years. If I learned anything from my first few visits back to Chicago after moving here, it is that it definitely doesn't take long to lose our immunity to cold!

I finished these on Christmas Eve. I think they will be my last finish of the year. I'm looking forward to more knitting and crocheting next year and also working my way back to sewing and quilting. Now for the pattern basics (more details on my Ravelry page):

Pattern: Mitbringsel, by Ysolda Teague (Knitworthy Collection)
Needle: size 8, 29" metal
Yarn: Manos del Uruguay wool clasica in "flame" and "coffee", Stitch Nation in "mediterranean"

Fomhar

Having finished the last stitch of Cambria the day before flying back to California from my stay in Chicago, I of course had to spend the morning both packing AND starting a new project for the plane. As I'm sure I've said before, I can't stand not having something yarny to do on planes. It relaxes me in an otherwise stressful and unpleasant situation. 

Luckily, on a lark I took along one skein of Prairie on the off chance that I finished "that huge shawl project". Needless to say, I thanked my past self for the forethought even if it was done with kind of a "yeah right that's not gonna happen" sort of attitude. Take that, past self. 

A long, long time ago (in a galaxy far, far away) I bought this yarn from Knit, Purl in Portland to make a shawl from one of my books, but the collective wisdom on Ravelry had very few good things to say about the pattern when I got around to looking it up. I started a section and didn't love it, either. Not wanting to waste this yarn on a project I didn't think I would end up using, stitching stopped and it sat around waiting for quite a while until I found a suitable pattern to try next. This is now going to turn into a crocheted shawl pattern out of an Interweave Crochet magazine. While endeavoring to make from my stash this year I decided I should try to use my printed resources, too, so I get to feel good about two things. 

I'd been hankering for a single stick project to go along with all of those I have going with two sticks, so I wanted to find a good crochet pattern. Also, just look at the way those colors look! I'm not sure that just knitting it up would have the same lovely effect. Because of the way the yarn gets used up with each double or triple crochet stitch, the short and subtle color changes wrap over and under each other really giving the whole thing depth. If I'm not mistaken, fomhar is Gaelic for autumn/harvest. When this yarn is worked up it looks to me like a dappled autumn day. The color way is 'filigree'.

I finished a couple of rows of shells which doesn't look like much, but it's lace weight yarn! That actually is a lot of stitches. I haven't made much progress on this since that flight, but I was really trying to be good and get Dad's scarf made before I went back to it. This will be a project that moseys along at its own pace with no particular rush. I'd like to be able to wear it by next fall, so y'know that's time.

Tweed, completed

I finished Dad's scarf in time for the holidays! I'm feeling pretty accomplished. That's a lot of knitting, folks. I don't really want to think about how many episodes of Arrow led to the finishing of this scarf. Let's just say I'm feeling pretty caught up!

Scarves are actually pretty hard for me because they are so long. I lose attention about 1/3 of the way through and just have to power through the rest. (The last scarf I started ended up as a collar!) Thankfully the stripes kept it interesting. "Just a few more rows until I get to switch colors!" was said many times. Hey, whatever works. Plus, the motivation to finish it in time to ship it for Christmas was pretty strong. Also, Arrow. I love me some super hero serials. But that's another story. 

I started out doing large blocks of color and then remembered Dad wanted kind of random stripes, so I ended up with three sections: large blocks, thin stripes, medium stripes. It's not quite a Dr. Who scarf, but something approximating what I think he really meant by "knit me a Dr. Who scarf". It has stripes, many colors, and is quite long, but not too many colors, a little bit of order to the stripes, and not so long as to be absurd.

As a reminder, this is Purl Bee's Mini Herringbone Scarf pattern and is knitted in acrylic Lion Brand Heartland yarn. I knit it on size 10 bamboo straight needles (more details on my Ravelry page). The herringbone texture is lovely and the fabric is nice and thick which makes for a warm cozy scarf. It's not really what I would call a true reversible pattern, but the back has nice even purl bumps that look quite neat and tidy with the exception of the inevitable color change strip. 

I got the ends woven in with a little effort (allll the ends!) and kind of stretch-fluffed it out in lieu of blocking. Unlike some folks who had written comments about their efforts on Ravelry I didn't have any issue with the shape distorting into a parallelogram so I didn't feel the need to further mess with it. Plus Dave said so. I listen to the husband's advice when he offers it! 

I actually really like when he chimes in, especially when it's comments like "wow that's really nice" or "you're so darn good at knitting things" as I got during the process on this one. Maybe he's fishing for one of his own?? I've got some gloves in the works for him whenever I get around to winding the yarn so hopefully he likes those just as well. As for this bad boy, he's all packed up and shipped off to go under the tree in Chicago! I hope it likes cold weather. One should think so, it is a long and fluffy scarf after all. 

Cambria, knitted

I finished this just before Thanksgiving, while hanging out on the couch at my parents' place in Chicago. The following is a photographic ode to what I think is a stunning shawl that I enjoyed working on enough to make another one some day. 

I haven't blocked it yet (shock and surprise) but already the wingspan is gargantuan. It ate up just about all of the two skeins of 400+ yards that I had and a good chunk of my leftover La Jolla for those little contrasting stripes. I ran out of the variegated color most of the way through the third stripe so that one is two rows shorter and I simply used the brown for the rest of the way. It's no big deal, I like the way the whole thing turned out and I won't notice two fewer rows in one of the sections. I will note that although it doesn't look like it, this is total potato chip knitting. Not only do the stripes keep you knitting, but the rhythm of the short row pattern also makes the rows fly by. Very addicting!

I had a lot of fun photographing this one. The visual texture of the pattern and the way it plays with the variations in yarn color even with the solid is really pleasing to the eye. Plus, obviously my stitch markers had to come along to play. The little bumble bees are nestled in a pretty glass dish I got in Half Moon Bay with my mom on one of her visits. I love me some purple, and it happens to go perfectly with the purple tones in this yarn.

Although I haven't blocked it yet, I can see that it is going to drape very nicely. Using a larger needle with a lighter weight yarn gives this fabric a light and floaty texture. I am imagining being wrapped up in this on a breezy day at the beach or an evening gazing into a campfire. An outdoorsy kind of piece, that's for sure. 

Also, a unicorn. Because, why not? More information can be found on my Ravelry project page and I'll post something after blocking, but here are the basic bits for now because we all know the blocking could be a while:

Pattern: Litchfield Shawl (by Laura Aylor)

Yarn: Manos del Uruguay Alegria in 'malvin', Anzula Squishy in 'sexy', and Baah La Jolla in 'maldives', about 950 yards total

Needles: size 6 to cast on and size 8 to knit the body

This was my first bottom-up shawl and I must say, I think I prefer it. The cast off at the top tab is much less cumbersome, and the bottom edge is a neater cast on row. Neater for me, anyway -- my cast offs are never as nice. Another plus in my mind is that the longest rows are out of the way while I'm still really excited about the newly started project. By the time I'm in the middle and wanting to cast on something new, the rows go by so fast it really motivates the finishing. So, bottom's up! 

evening knitting

My dad actually asked for something specific for Christmas this year, which is basically unheard of. I'm really tickled that what he wanted was a hand knit scarf. "Long, with stripes, in Dad colors" was the request, so I got to indulge in a little bit of yarn shopping when I returned from my trip.

I knew I wanted to work with at least worsted weight yarn both to make the fabric a little hefty and to make the inches go by at a good clip. I also wanted the yarn to be soft and have great stitch definition but be reasonably priced so I could get 5 different colors. I remembered that I've been wanting to try out Heartland yarn from Lion Brand and there were some great "Dad colors" so I went that route. 

Aside: I spent a lot of vacation in stores perusing wearables and touching lovely knitted things. So many of the knits you can get in stores are made with acrylic yarns that manage to be soft and really appealing (a la the Anhild cowl at Anthropologie). With the exception of a few of the bulkier Lion Brand yarns, I haven't really seen anything similar in either the small local yarn stores or the larger craft stores. Where do we home knitters get to find these mythical creatures? And in all the great colors?

After browsing on Ravelry for a while looking at patterns, I discovered two things. First, it's really difficult to find unique but classic patterns for men. There are a lot of patterns with elaborate lace (too girly), lots of cables (probably not great with stripes), or just plain garter or stockinette stitch (kind of boring). I wanted something a little different to both hold my attention while knitting and strike that elusive balance between simple and eye catching. This leads me to my second discovery, the mini herringbone scarf from Purl Bee.  

I started but stopped an effort at the big herringbone cowl from the same site a while back. I'm not sure why, but the stitches seemed very foreign and complicated to me at the time so I decided no more. This version is not exactly the same, but very close and I've had no trouble getting started and memorizing the pattern. I'm a few stripes in and enjoying this as a way to feel like watching Arrow on Netflix isn't an idle evening activity. :)

I can already tell I'm going to like how this turns out. The fabric is sturdy but still springy, and the yarn shows off the herringbone stitch beautifully. I wasn't totally sure about the stripes not competing with the stitch pattern since I only saw one other project use multiple colors, but based on what I have right now I am pretty sure it won't be a problem! One foot down, several more to go….

between things

It was a busy end of October wrapping up everything at work, cheering on the Giants in the World Series, and moving back to Palo Alto. That's right… I'm back home for good! This last year in Sacramento was amazing and enlightening and all sorts of other positive adjectives and superlatives, but I'm happy to be back to our little nest in Palo Alto. I'm not sure what's next for me other than something interesting and exciting, but for now I'm enjoying the in between. 

The boxes are half unpacked, and husband and cats are happy at the prospect of seeing me during the week. So of course the first thing I did was book a two week trip to Chicago to visit my parents for my birthday. As I write this I am mid-trip enjoying the fall colors outside and the cosy couch inside. 

Of course, no trip for me is complete without some yarn in hand. I brought along my current favorite project and have made a lot of progress! Airports and plane rides are some of my favorite opportunities to get hours of knitting in, with breaks of course! I managed to get my yarn into quite a tangle on the plane, though, since I was sitting in the middle seat trying to negotiate a persnickety section of the ball of Malvin while not elbowing my neighbors. Argh. I spent a big chunk of that flight just trying to unknot things rather than knitting. I wonder if my seat mates were amused? In the end I wound up breaking the yarn in a couple places and re-joining when I untangled the mess after getting home. I hope my spit-felting will hold!

One of the primary hesitations I had when deciding on this project for this yarn was that the variegated yarn would look funky with the short row design. Above is a picture of one short row section, and it actually looks just fine. Of course they are all different in how the colors pool, but it's not a weird super obvious spiral effect like I feared. I can tell because of the stitch angles, but I don't think that is an issue specific to the variegated yarn, I see it in the other sections too. I'm sure it will read just fine when all is said and done and I'm not scrutinizing it but wearing it.

I'm in the fourth section of seven and the inches are starting to go by faster as the rows get shorter. This far in I'm finally convinced about the color combo and I think it's going to turn into something I am really going to love. Didn't really notice how big it has gotten until I laid it out to snap this picture, it's gonna be a doozie! I'm sure I'll get lots more done while I'm here; the stockinette goes by fast and I've gotten the hang of the pattern so I don't have to think about it too much. That of course gives me the opportunity to let my mind wander, reflect, and ruminate on the future which is what this trip is all about! 

world series fidget

There were ups, there were downs but boy was it an exciting Series! 

Gotta love October baseball when your team is in it. 

Through it all I worked on my Cambria shawl. When I was in Sacramento "taking a break from packing" this was the perfect accompaniment to the World Series on the radio. I could sit myself down in my chair, put my feet up on the little ottoman, and knit away on stockinette while trying to visualize the field. I think I only missed a decrease once or twice. Since the shawl starts from the bottom up, the rows were loooooong and slow going, but it grew quite a bit.

When I was in Palo Alto for the weekend curled up on the couch in front of the TV with cats and husband this project was still the perfect game time activity. I've learned that I'm a much more nervous TV baseball watcher than a radio baseball listener. Somehow seeing the players makes me think I have more control over the game if I just hope hard enough. Logical, no? Turns out knitting during commercials and especially tense at-bats is a great way to deal. 

In the end, the boys in orange and black emerged triumphant and Madison Bumgarner proved that he can pitch whatever wherever whenever. That guy. 

Cruel September

This has got to be my favorite thing I've made so far this year. It was fun to pick out colors, fun to work up, and I absolutely love the way it turned out. 

Ysolda Teague, a designer whose work I quite enjoy, came out with a new collection of patterns called Knitworthy (link to Ravelry page). Every two weeks a new pattern comes out, and they are small but packed with creative punch and style, meant to be manageable pieces to make as gifts for "knit worthy" folks in your universe of people. Bronntanas is the first and only one I've managed to make so far but there have been 4 lovely designs released to date that all have some element that is new to me. So not only are these great designs, quick to do, and addictive like popcorn (if this one is reflective of them all), but I will learn along the way! Very excited me. 

There are all sorts of awesome things about this hat. First off, yarn leftovers got used up. Second, I really like the honeycomb pattern and resulting texture. It kind of reminds me of the protein assemblies from my graduate work, in a good way. And the fact that I can look back fondly on that is a coup indeed! Third, I love slouchy hats. Fourth, I learned how to do single stitch cables without a cable needle. Skills!

After examining my stash for yarns that were appropriate, I decided to use multiple colors and keep them all in the icy/wintery color genre. I was originally hoping to arrange them in a pseudo-gradient starting with the gray then dark blue, light blue, and finally the white. Turns out the dark blue yarn is lighter weight than the light blue and it the piece would have been weighted funny if I had used the heavier yarn higher up. Mixing yarn weights worked out ok, but I did have to rip out and use the light blue first. Coupled with the fact that my first cast on of the brim resulted in a HUGE circumference I had to start this hat three times! Luckily it's an addictive knit and I really liked the design, or else I probably would have given up. I especially like the way the crown of the hat cinches together and how the piece of CascadeEco I had leftover makes a nice color progression from variegated gray to pure white in the center. I could not have planned that better. Totally worth the up front perseverance.

Because I started on this September 1st, I named it for a song my husband wrote way back when we first met. The refrain goes "Cruel September threw her last leaf at me" which I think it just a really neat mental image. I hum the tune every time I look at the hat.

I ended up knitting the size medium and it perfectly fits my head, in a non-grippy hang-on-to-your-hat-in-strong-wind kind of way. Based on the pictures in the pattern, it looks like the design is meant to provide a loose fit at the band and it does that very nicely.

This hat will forever remind me of Scotland, a place I want to see so much. I have the impression I would love it there, though I can't really explain why. It's just a feeling. Why does this hat recall the land of lochs? Well, the designer hails from there, for one. But more because I knit this during a time when I was rabidly reading everything I could about the Scottish referendum for independence. Also, Outlander. Total coincidence. Still, quite a bit of Scottish-ness happening all at once. Regardless of how you feel about the results of the vote, you can't argue that the whole thing was truly momentous. This is definitely one of those cases where thoughts and ponderings get woven into the fabric with every stitch.

I really did start this out intending to make it as a gift, but I'm not sure this version is going to manage to leave. I will definitely use this pattern again and given that it's quite a fast knit, I don't see why I can't keep this one and work up another! Then again, it matches so well with a scarf I gifted earlier this year that I know exactly who might get it. Decisions decisions….

red rover, red rover

The last of the baby gifts! Since I made leg warmers and a blanket for one coworker, I needed another little something to go with the blanket for the second. I give you Red Rover.

This little guy is a super cute sweater with an off-center cable motif on the front and buttons running down the back. Presumably the buttons are on the back so little fingers don't pluck them off and transmit them to little mouths. I suppose you could use the sweater either way, though.

The yarn is Dream in Color Smooshy, wool with a touch of cashmere in it, and the stitch definition is lovely for both the stockinette and cable sections of this sweater. I also really enjoy the variations in color of this yarn, as in many of the yarns I gravitate to. True to this year's goal, this was out of the stash. I bought a skein at Interweave Knitting Lab in 2012 and used it for a couple projects (a buttoned collar, a baby cardigan) leaving about half of it left over. Turns out that was the perfect yardage to make this.

It worked up quite quickly, taking just about two weeks of not very focused knitting time. The construction is a pretty simple top-down raglan style where you set the sleeve stitches aside to be picked up and worked in the round later. I'm getting so good at baby sweaters I hope this eventually translates to sweaters for big people! I keep telling myself this is good practice. (And then think guiltily of the Aidez and Rotation sweaters I've had on the needles for quite some time….)

I did make a couple small modifications: shortening the sleeves to 3/4 length and knitting an i-cord for the cuffs instead of ribbing. I wasn't super happy with the way the garter stitch hemline at the bottom turned out so loose, so that prompted the change in edging on the sleeves. I'm actually quite pleased with the i-cord look and would do it on the bottom if I had it to do over. As for the sleeve length, I thought they were turning out kind of long, and I also didn't' want to run out of yarn in the midst of the second sleeve. That would have been sad sauce.

I sifted through the bags of miscellaneous buttons I have from Britex and found these cute brown squares. They fit perfectly through the buttonholes called for in the pattern and the corners provide enough interference to not slip back through too easily. No sneaky unbuttoning buttons here! I chose to sew them on with light aqua perle cotton for contrast and sturdiness. Perle cotton is tough, and it's little person clothing. Toughness is needed.

The basics (more on Ravelry): Jeudi (free pattern by Elisa Di Fiore), just over half a skein of Dream in Color Smooshy in Fierce Scarlet, size 4 circular wooden needles, steam blocked with wires and pins. Quite pleased with this one, especially the time from start to finish. I definitely have noticed an improvement in my knitting skills this past year or so. More improvement to come! 

little legs

The thought of leg warmers for babies never really occurred to me before, but one day my office found ourselves abuzz discussing the cuteness of the concept. Ok. I can do that. 

This project really started out as a bit of a joke, but they went so quick that I am pretty glad I made them. I used size 4 dpns and another ball of yarn out of my dwindling (but still sizable) stash in keeping with my knitterly goal this year. I actually obsessively weighed the yarn as I got close to what I thought was halfway through since I wanted to use the whole ball up. I literally weighed every 4 rows or so. Yeesh. It worked, though. 

Once the first was done and off the needles, need for the scale gone, I may or may not have knit the second one on the beach. 

That, people. That is why I love living in California so much. I just plopped my beach chair down, took out my needles and got to work while my companions went for a run or just generally wandered down the shore. I was totally a-ok with guarding the stuff until they got back. 

I used the long-tail cast on for the beginning which I think is somewhat stretchy. But, worried that I'd have a tight cast off that had the potential to cut off circulation on chubby little baby legs I went with a stretchier bind off. I feel that backfired because now that end is overly stretched out at the top of the ribbing. I am hoping simply flipping down that part and essentially making it "the top" kind of solves the issue. Still, I'd be interested in hearing about a stretchable bind off that doesn't do that annoying flare out thing. 

The self-striping yarn was fun. I have one more ball in another colorway that may be destined for ankle socks. I liked working with it so I'm hoping it's a good candidate for my first foray into turning heels. Plus, not allergic to microfiber. I digress. These leg warmers are made using Alana Dakos' "Legwarmies" pattern (more detail on my Ravelry page) and used just about 185 yards of sport weight yarn on size 4 needles to make a nice dense fabric. They don't really thematically go with the blanket I finished for this mom-to-be, but I think she'll get a chuckle out of them nonetheless.

a partial unicorn

Okay, I must admit. I've been avoiding this project, letting it languish in its tote in the corner, but it is pretty darn cute. 

I thought I'd interrupt the finished object parade this week with a little work in progress. I literally haven't touched this since the end of June, but as I was packing some things up last night I took a look at this and decided it was silly for it to have sat up here this whole time with little progress. So I sat down, made a fourth leg and set to the task of assembly. 

I'm a little bit too detail-oriented to really say I enjoy assembling pieces like this, but I suffered through. Also, my yarn needle is currently awol, so I improvised using the crochet hook, manual dexterity, and sheer stubbornness. I think I got everything on somewhat evenly and in the right places. I do kind of enjoy the jaunty ears. 

He's all set to have a mane and tail now. I'm not sure I'm wild about the way the pattern suggests doing those, so I haven't finished him completely yet. He should be happy to be partially assembled now, but I think he's holding the hairless thing against me. 

Sippy Cup

This is the second baby blanket I finished this summer, for another coworker who is expecting in January. It's made from yarn I had left in my stash, another great use of some leftovers. I lucked out with the blue and gray colors; turns out she's having a boy! I think this pretty robin egg blue would be just fine for a little girl, too though. It's certainly one of my favorite colors. 

This pattern is called the Baby Chalice. The lace repeat makes a cup shape that kind of reminds me of the Grail in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. "You chose…. poorly." Thankfully I'm pretty sure I chose wisely, this piece turned out pretty well. 

Since I was using two colors, I went with stripes again. This time though instead of doing random color blocks like the last blanket, I took a more methodical approach. Pairs of stripes are 16 rows wide and the width of the stripe of each color increases or decreases by 4 rows. That is, 12 rows of blue, 4 rows of gray in one section then 8 rows of blue, 8 rows of gray in the next, and so on. It took some concentrating, but in the end I like the way it turned out looking.

This blanket was in the batch of pieces I blocked on Wednesday, and the design definitely benefits from a good blocking. Here is the blanket before I stretched and steamed it:

And here is what it looks like after. Instead of a bunch of squishy cables, the chalice pattern really comes out to play. 

I used approximately 430 yards of yarn on this, about 175 blue and the rest gray (Ravelry link). Believe it or not, I knit the whole thing on size 10 straight bamboo needles. Generally for something this wide I'd switch to circulars, but the grippy bamboo really helped me on this pattern with all the yo's and stitch slipping. I knit 7 repeats of the chalice pattern with 10 rows of garter stitch before and after (counting cast on/off rows). The piece before blocking was 22 x 29" and I blocked it to 30 x 34" using my trusty steamer.

I really like how this turned out, and I would definitely make one of these again. Maybe a larger adult size using a soft and squishy bulky yarn? Could be fun! For now, this one is all ready to be packed up and gifted, and I've got plenty more on on the 'to make' list before coming back to this pattern…. 

Deciduous

When I heard that one of my coworkers was having a baby, I took it as the perfect opportunity to knit up one of the projects I've been eying in my Ravelry favorites list. The Leafy Baby Blanket caught my eye with it's simple and classic design. I won't lie, the feature project being gray also helped. I've got a gray thing going on lately.

Endeavoring to keep to my stash, I threw a few skeins of Nature's Choice Organic Cotton from Lion Brand (not gray...) in my craft bag as I was headed off to Florida for vacation in July. I love the feel and weight of this yarn, and I made a great cowl with some of it (pre-this blog!), but I had never found a suitable project I wanted to use the rest on. The organic cotton is the perfect choice for this particular recipient, and I thought the natural colors would also suit the leaf design both in spirit and simplicity.

Taupe, Espresso, Dusty Sage, Macadamia

This was great airplane knitting and also a nice relaxing activity for the evenings after action-packed days of Disney and Universal Studios. Taking just 2 weeks from cast on to cast off, with only intermittent knitting time, it was satisfying to work with thicker yarn and see the inches fly off the needles.

Since I was working with what I had on hand, stripes seemed like a good solution. Each stripe used up all of the yarn of each color with the exception of the green. I had one full skein and one partial skein, so I went with two stripes instead of one big green section. 

The pattern was simple but turns out looking quite complex. It looks fine as-is, but will definitely benefit from blocking to even out the fabric and straighten up the lacy bits. True to form, this sat around in the closet for a while while I worked on other things. Today I sat down to weave in ends and get it blocked. 

The piece started out at about 22 x 26" and I stretched it out to 27 x 31.5" with blocking wires. Oh how I love my new wires! They make straight lines so much easier. I steam blocked with my handheld steamer and let it dry. After I took it off the wires the blanket relaxed to 25.5" x 31", close to what the pattern states and a nice carrying or carriage size. 

The baby isn't due until December, but there is a baby shower this weekend so I suppose I finished with good timing! This will get wrapped up with some ribbon and a little tag with washing instructions for the mom-to-be.