Diagonal Pattern Baby Blanket Completed

I finally finished the Diagonal Pattern Baby Blanket. As noted in a previous post, this yarn was originally used to knit a Prayer Shawl that got close to being finished, but then I decided it would be better to frog that and make a baby blanket instead.

The idea to make a baby blanket was encouraged by a post in the Afghans & Blankets group on Ravelry by wickedsplitty, where she said, "For baby blankets I’m a huge fan of (please don’t yell at me!) Red Heart Baby Clouds. For one thing, it’s machine washable and dryable. For another, babies love it. They just love it! I’ve made quite a few for the babies and grandbabies of friends and it always becomes the 'blankie of choice.' It’s super soft, pretty much hypoallergenic, and there’s just something about it that appeals to the babies."

Once finished, this blanket was sent to my youngest granddaughter for her first birthday. I hope she likes it as much as the recipients of wickedsplitty's blankets liked theirs.

As much as I liked the finished product, I did not like knitting with this Red Heart Baby Clouds yarn at all, and I imagine crocheting with it would be even worse. Maybe it's the way I knit or something, but it was always catching and splitting and binding up and sticking as I'd do a stitch, so it made the knitting pretty slow-going, and I like to go fast.

I have the same problem with Lion Brand Homespun, the yarn I'm using for the Homespun Leafy Border Afghan, which is one of the reasons why I don't like working on that afghan for long periods of time. These yarns are really nice and soft to the touch, but I doubt I'll be buying any more of them or looking to use any of them in the future.

I do have six skeins of Baby Clouds in my stash (really pretty colors, too!) that I will be using to make another baby blanket, this time in a striped mitered square pattern from Lion called Happy Baby Blanket ( http://cache.lionbrand.com/patterns/khs-happyBabyBlanket.html ), but after struggling through that, I'll probably be done with Baby Clouds forever.

Directions for the Diagonal Pattern Baby Blanket may be found here: http://www.lionbrand.com/patterns/khs-diagonalBabyBlanket.html?noImages=

Instead of the Homespun and size 11 needles called for in the pattern, I used Red Heart Baby Clouds in 9008 Cotton Candy on size 15 needles. I also had to modify the pattern because I only had 4 skeins of this yarn, and I got to the end of the second skein (half of my yarn supply) when I only had 116 stitches on the needles. The pattern calls for increasing until there are 126 stitches on the needles and then start decreasing, but since that was half of my yarn already used up, that had to be the halfway point of the blanket, too, so I started decreasing at 116 instead of 126. That's one of the nice things about this pattern--being able to gauge the halfway point and make adjustment, if necessary, and the blanket still turns out properly proportioned.

From Prayer Shawl to Baby Blanket

Diagonal Pattern Baby Blanket: This is an example of what happens when a project is started during one phase of your life and not finished during the same phase. It started out as a Prayer Shawl using a pattern from the Prayer Shawl Ministry: http://www.shawlministry.com/ . At the time, I liked the ideas of comforting expressed by the ministry, and the circumstances of my life back then were such that I couldn't think of anyone who needed such comfort more than I did. During that time, things were so dark and desperate and the spiritual warfare so intense that I was praying every day more than I had ever prayed in my life before. So, I bought some of the yarn recommended for the pattern in a colorway that was a combination of pink, blue and white--pink and blue having been my favorite colors for a long, long time.

Through the subsequent years, my life changed, especially my spiritual life. First, I discovered that the tallit (Hebrew prayer shawl) had been around for millennia and when I had my own, I discovered that it was a lot more practical for use as a prayer shawl than the heavy bulky one I had been knitting off and on for the previous three years or so since it is much lighter--a single layer of woven fabric. While the one I was knitting could end up being a tallit by adding a tzitzit to each of the four corners when it was finished, it seemed it would still be too hot and uncomfortable to be under for long periods of prayer time. Also, because of its size and bulk, it would not fit into a tallit bag and be easy to take along in my Scriptures case as with the traditional tallit.

As time went on, I didn't even need a traditional tallit because I came to wearing a headcovering full-time, so the shawl in progress had become obsolete for the originally intended purpose. I thought about just completing it and using it as a regular shawl for warmth purposes, but I've never been a shawl wearer. Besides that, pink and blue weren't even my favorite colors anymore! Somewhere along the way I've come to prefer soft purple colors like lavender and violet. When I thought about completing the shawl and giving it to one of my loved ones, the pastel pink and blue colors of the shawl didn't seem to fit any of them either--too babyish.

Finally, after a few more months of thinking about it, I decided to frog the Prayer Shawl. (The knitting term 'frog' comes from 'rip it, rip it'.) Then I actually did it and ended up with four skeins of Baby Clouds yarn absolutely perfect in every way for a soft cuddly baby blanket and immediately started knitting it up. That's the great thing about yarn--it can always be unraveled and you can start again. I kind of miss the Prayer Shawl and the way it reminded me of my spiritual journey of the past few years, but the baby blanket has the same effect as I'm knitting it.

Dance War: I have been wondering about the point of this show from the beginning--How can a 'team' win this 'war' unless one team never has anyone eliminated? Is that the point--to have one of the original teams stay intact while the other team dwindles down to zero week by week? But then what if, next week, the dwindling team wins the audience vote, and so that the so-far-intact team has to finally lose a member? In that case, you'd have no intact teams, only reduced teams, and does that mean the show is over? If not, and the point is to get down to only one person still standing, then how can that be a winning 'team'? Winning 'side' maybe, but not really a 'team'. What if there are 3 people left on one team when the last member of the other team gets eliminated? Is the show over then, or will they then fight amongst themselves to be the last one standing? I guess that's why I still pay some attention to this show--to see how it's supposed to play out--because the singing and dancing sure aren't good enough to keep my interest.

Today's Scripture Reading: Shemu'el Alef (1 Samuel) 6:1-9:14

Dinner Tonight: Final appearance of Dad's Super Bowl Chili.