All the Live-Long Day

"I've been working on a blanket just to pass the time away," which is of course typically avoidant behavior since I have work to do. And really that "working" was all done yesterday. Now I'm just blogging about this project, and after that I'll go back to working on teacher goals and student comments. NOTE: I doubt that you are reading this blog, BFF Monica, but if you are, stop right there. Go find something else to do. You have plenty on your plate, I know, since your play performs this week. ;^)

........................................................................

Ahem . . .
So my BFF Monica is expecting in January and I've been knitting on a blankie for the little guy (ultrasounds usually don't lie in this direction!). I've now got the blanket backed with polar fleece and sewn buttons on the PF side so that it will be nice and anchored when I sew the binding edge on. I also read up on doing this cleverly and found that many quilters/blanket backers glue the edges together before sewing the binding, so that it will not pucker or gather up weirdly. So I did that too. Now it's dry and I've trimmed the PF edge a bit so I can get around corners well. Last step will be to sew the sucker up. No, I forgot, the last step will be to wash it gently--I found a smudge on the ivory polar fleece after I'd already cut and pinned it, daggone it.

I hear the nursery is being done in a blue/brown combo, so this yellow/ivory blanket will not clash. The knitted side is one of those unbelievably soft boucle baby yarns, just done up in garter stitch since the lumpy bumpiness of the boucle doesn't lend itself to stitch definition. Here's a few pics of the process so far:

Knit mindlessly whenever there's time over several weeks. I don't know how many stitches I cast on or what size needles I used. Maybe 8s.

Cut polar fleece to match, pin down, and sew buttons to the polar fleece side. I chose matching ivory buttons, but that's just one way to go. I was proud of my ability to cut to measure, to fit it all together, and to measure for button placement, remeasure as I sewed, sew randomly from one end to the other so that it would be unlikely to pucker or pull, and then to trim a bit here and there for the final measurements.

I know--you can't see the smudge. But it's there and it's bugging me. Maybe I'll just spot clean it.

Then glue edges of the two blanket layers together and weight down to keep anything from moving around or shrinking up. The glue I used instructed the placement of aluminum foil along the glue edge but it was totally unnecessary.

Looks like a pale quesadilla, no? yum!

I'll post pics of the finished blanket, as well as the sleeves I continue to work on here and there. These require utmost attention because I am decreasing for the shoulder fit and don't want to get off the pattern. So . . . Singing Daughter, I know October has passed and we're into November now. I hope it will be done by Thanksgiving!

As promised . . . the finished blanket. Ahhh!