My First Blanket!

This blanket was my first project back to knitting after a long hiatus. I began knitting at a very young age and got inspired to start up again when I entered a yarn shop with some of the most beautiful yarns. Many would say I was quite ambitious in choosing a blanket because the most I had knitted with knitting needles was a scarf. When I first went into this project I didn't have much of an idea of what I wanted the blanket to look like. The pattern I created with the different yarn colors just came along as the project progressed.

My trip to the yarn store

Where I live in Grand Blanc, MI there are two really great local yarn stores. Beyond the Rainforest Yarn Shop, where I frequent more out of the two, is often run by Susan, my yarn lady; well that's what I call her. Since I started this blanket she has been really helpful in making sure I had all of the right materials and tools I would need to make my project most successful. She actually introduced me to circular needles. For those of you have never heard of those they are like straight needles but are connected by a cable that holds the stitches in between the two needles. The brand that Susan sold me were 'Addi' and I have since bought many pairs and am hoping to get a needle set for Christmas! They are German made and each pair is guaranteed for LYFEEEE! I do not know if this is guaranteed everywhere but my yarn lady says if they break they can be replaced for free. The fun thing about the circular needles is you can knit 'flat' or 'in the round' and the needles don't get in the way. I highly recommend them! Anyways I started off with 10.5 US size needles with a 24" cable and I used five different colors of the Plymouth - Encore Chunky Yarn(multiple skeins, too many to know the amount for sure). I am recently discovering the importance of a gauge swatch but for this project I did not make one. I ended up knitting each "patch" 20 stitches by 20 rows and later decided on adding the border so some of the pieces turned out to be wider in stitches so that I didn't have to keep casting off and on again. As you can see from pictures I ended up sewing the patches together as I went down the line. This project was really enjoyable and rewarding. Now I have a blanket that will hopefully last me a long time! Of course it is not perfect but Im proud of it because I can say I made it myself. You can feel free to ask me any questions by locating the contact me section on the home page, because Im sure I left something out. If you made it this far, thanks for reading and enjoy the pictures of my progress below :)