Welcome to Blankie-Palooza! 4 Knitted Blankets in Progress

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Believe it or not, I’ve got four knitted blankets on the needles right now!  I always get a little sad sharing my large projects here on the blog – they take me ages to knit and then they just get one little post when I’m done, so I’m going to give them their due today and share some pics of the works in progress.

The Double Tuck(-ish) Blanket

The oldest one the needles is this Log Cabin style blanket I started for my husband back in January of 2020.  It’s based on a pattern called the Double Tuck Blanket but I didn’t like the stitch pattern so I went rogue and just did my own thing.  I’ve been alternating garter stitch sections with basic knit & purl stitch patterns from my collection of stitch dictionaries.

To be totally honest, I’m kind of “over” this project.  I will work on it for one evening and then set it aside for months.  I don’t like the half-and-half contrasting color scheme and I don’t think I’ve done a good job matching up gauges for the different sections, so they pucker a bit.  Ordinarily I’d say they’ll block out fine, but this is 100% acrylic yarn, so I’m not sure how much the blocking will help.  I’m honestly considering just abandoning this project, but maybe I’ll power through.  I could probably stop now and just call it a baby blanket, but since I don’t really like it all that much, I’m not sure I want to present it to anyone as a gift!

Jewel-Toned Hue Shift Afghan

This beauty really deserves its own post because it is so lovely, but for now, it will have to share the spotlight here.  This is Knit Pick’s infamous Hue Shift Afghan in the Jewel Tone color set.  (You can scroll to the bottom of that pattern page and Jewel Tone colors are pre-programmed in as a kit option).  A while back I made the pastel version and it is amazing!  I initially thought that the Brava yarn that comes in in the kit wasn’t going to be very good and I wondered if I should have chosen a wool blend, but I was absolutely wrong.  This baby is super warm and cuddly!

I have already knitted the first two panels and I’m one row into the third, then I’ll have to add on the border.  I’d say I’m about 40% done with it.  I’ve had to take a break from it recently because the two baby blankets I’m about to mention below have taken priority.

Bounce

This next project is called the Bounce Blanket by Tin Can Knits, and I’m in love with how it is turning out.  The lace pattern on this baby blanket would probably be easy to memorize, but I’m using the chart just to be on the safe side.  It’s moving along fairly quickly and I’m weaving in the ends as I knit when I change colors so there shouldn’t be too much finishing work when I’m done.  (I’m weaving in the end of the old yarn and the tail of the new yarn at the same time on the first row, of the color change which is probably not an instructor-recommended technique, but it’s getting the job done quite well!)

I’m knitting this out of Knit Picks Comfy which is hands-down the best yarn for baby blankets on the market.  The mother-to-be told me the nursery was going to have a “boho cowboy” vibe, so this color scheme is my attempt to accomplish that.  I’ve done the bottom motif in the gold and red and the next stripe sequence will be done in blues, with the grey yarns making appearances along the way.

Corner-to-Corner Knitted Blanket

We had a bit of a family emergency when one of my nieces lost her blankie (you know, the THE blankie!) so I jumped into action to knit her a little something to try to fill the void.  She requested something in pastel colors and I asked if it could incorporate grey because I happened to have a ton of this light grey Comfy in my stash from a time when I way overestimated how much yarn a project was going to require.  I’m going to be able to knit this whole blanket from my stash, which is pretty neat.  All of it is leftover Comfy except the lilac yarn, which is a mystery cotton that I got in a craft swap several years ago.

This blanket follows a corner-to-corner construction method which always feels like it works up faster than a traditional pattern, even though they probably both have the same number of stitches.  With corner-to-corner, you start with one stitch and increase a stitch on the side every row until it is at its widest point (the diagonal of the square) then you start decreasing each row until you are back to one stitch.  I decided to do this project corner-to-corner because I wasn’t sure what the final size would be, so I was able to defer that decision until mid-blanket vs casting on the full number of stitches straight at the beginning.

Hot Tip: If you are new to working large projects like knitted blankets, I recommend starting out with a corner-to-corner construction because the stitch count builds up slowly and gives you time to get used to managing a large number of stitches on your needles.