Omg this is so cute. And it is also the ultimate using-up-the-stash project. When I found out my friend Cindy was expecting, I knew I was going to have to knit her baby something since she's my knitting buddy. It was February, well before the due date (she arrived just last week!), and my brain went past booties, hats, or a stuffed animal and said "blanket".
I have had this fuzzy purple/pink yarn in my stash for a long long time. Like before I even met my hubby long. It was originally supposed to be a sweater but that was overly ambitious of me back then, for sure. I'm glad it hung around for so long because this turned out to be an amazing use for it. I hope it washes well - everything is acrylic so at least it will be easy to deal with. Since I knew I wanted to pair it with a 'normal' yarn that meant I went hunting for a simple pattern so the texture difference was the star rather than anything complicated pattern-wise. Trusty chevrons. Always there when you need them.
Funny story about the peach yarn. I recall, also many moons ago, that I was reteaching myself to knit. I was watching some old episodes of Star Trek (don't ask me why I remember that, or why old Star Trek, for that matter) and wrestling with this yarn and a needle that I realized only much later was far too big. Fast forward to the brilliant thought of 'I know! I'll unravel that blanket I tried forever ago and use it in this one'. Not a bad idea, but each time I had a section where I switched from knit to purl the yarn was twisted. This meant I couldn't just pull on the yarn and have it unravel. The moss stitch borders were particularly terrible. Turns out I was unraveling from the cast on edge rather than the bound off edge. It took some doing, but I worked out a system to undo things so I could actually use the yarn. Sharing just so we all remember it's ok to be human :)
I'm really pleased with the texture, the pattern, the everything. This baby's getting a fine piece of knitting! Originally I wanted to use gray superwash wool instead of peach but after realizing I had plenty of peach acrylic and not much gray wool I decided to try it out. It really does remind me of rainbow sherbert.
I used the pattern as a guide, knitting stripes that are 10 rows thick (5 repeats) and kept knitting until it seemed big enough to me. As frustrating as unraveling the peach yarn was, I gave myself a break and weaved in ends as I went along - highly recommended practice for large projects in general. I added the thin stripe at the end to use up the rest of my ball of purple and I like that little inconsistency. It was steam blocked one evening along with Flamingo Foot and Stanford Pride and remains folded up all ready for my first visit to see the little miss.
Rainbow Sherbert (my Ravelry page)
Pattern: Chevron Baby Blanket by Espace Tricot
Yarn: Red Heart Classic in 'peach' and Jo-Ann Sensations Margherita in 'purple'
Needle: US 9
Size: 32" x 40"
THIS. IS. ADORABLE.
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