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.