We've seen our next finished project for this week before. And looking pretty much like it does now. With one small difference: no more pins! The hemlock ring baby blanket I started for Shannon's baby-on-the-way has had its last blocking and was sent off to the expectant parents last week.

sniff, sniff, it's all grown up and gone out into the big world
(click for the BIG version!)

Who knows how long the cotton/silk blend will hold the blocking. I hope that baby will like the blanket enough that it'll acquire that dragged about stretched out look that all well-loved blankies get and no-one will ever care whether it lies perfectly flat or not. Baby blankies aren't meant to be wall-hangings anyway, right?

Flat or puckery, I just can't get enough of that center flower design! It's perfect for the first day of spring: blooming flowers, newborn babies, it's lovely.

Because it took me forever to finish the loopy edge bind off on this hemlock ring baby blanket!

classic elite classic silk in a tweedy red

But I love it! It came out all wavy and ruffly, which I think girls up the blanket just enough. The whole thing is blocking now. It looks great all wet and pinned out.

i gotta get me one of those blocking board things, don't you agree?

But will it stay that way? Shannon's wee one is due in a few weeks, so I've got that long to block it into submission. Any tips from you experienced hemlock ring-ers out there??

Why, that looks like another pinwheel sweater! Yes, I've just finished teaching a knitting class at my lys where we made pinwheel sweaters - what fun it was! Because the sweater has such a unique construction, I had to make a little sample mini-pinwheel along with my students. I was just going to rip it out, but then we discovered that it was the perfect size to fit on a Baby Bobbi Bear (and, what do you know, I'm teaching a class on that pattern next month!). So I'm finishing the thing off for baby-Bobbi-bear-on-the-way and am now just at "the loopy edge".

And here's the baby hemlock ring blanket I'm finishing up for best buddy, Shannon, and her upcoming arrival. I'm at... wait for it... the loopy edge. So let's compare loops, shall we?

For the hemlock ring's loopy edge, better known as "87th rnd", we work four stitches and a yarnover, turn, make five new stitches in the yarnover, turn again, and bind off seven stitches. Net loss of stitches: four.

For the pinwheel sweater, we work three stitches onto a dpn, then work 6 rows of i-cord on those stitches, and finally place them on top of the next three stitches of the sweater and knit them together with those stitches (sort of like a three-needle bind off but without the binding off). We're left with three stitches on the dpn ready to make 6 rows of i-cord for the next loop. Net loss of stitches: three.

So, which do I prefer? Well, I like the big fat loops of the pinwheel's loopy edge a lot, but having dpns and the original needles all dangling about at the same time is a bit annoying. The lovely curved loops of the hemlock ring's loopy edge remind me of pretty flowery crochet edgings, but that work-turn-work-turn thing always feels a little one-step-forward-two-steps-back to me. So, I like 'em both about the same. And I'm kinda liking doing them both at the same time. When one starts to feel tedious, I switch to the other. So I don't end up completely loopy!

And now the promised more info regarding the hemlock ring blanket I've been working on for Shannon's baby.

The yarn is Classic Elite's Classic Silk. Shannon is allergic to wool, which left me with some difficult searching for the right yarn for the job. Jared Flood's version of the blanket is so charming in the rustic, aran weight eco wool. I wanted to keep as much of that feel as possible, but unfortunately, cottons usually come in bright, summery colors and shiny, mercerized solids. They also tend to be either too textured for lace work or stretch out too much to hold a complex pattern. And I don't even want to talk about how wrong it would be to use a really large-gauge cotton for anything! After looking for a long time, I settled on the Classic Silk in this tweedy red. The dk weight meant I could follow the original pattern and the blanket should end up baby sized. The color was right for Shannon (it also comes in a lovely tweedy pink that I would have loved to use, but Shannon had mentioned being a bit pink-ed out with baby girl stuff and I knew she'd prefer the red). The yarn is extremely soft - I love tweedy yarns that are actually soft! - and it holds its shape excellently - just look at how those yarnovers are opening up! I just hope the silk won't be a problem for the little one.

Now, I did read that there's an error in some line of the pattern. I kept seeing that mentioned on some blog or some ravelry page and always tried to remind myself to look that up again when I got to that round. Then, after my first night of knitting (in Germany with the in-laws), I realized I must have passed that round. Nothing went wrong on mine, leaving me to conclude that it was one of those knitting-by-the-instructions and not knitting-by-the-gist types of things. I'd kind of gotten the idea of what was going on and had stopped reading each little instruction, so I missed the error entirely! But if you're a beginner or find the patterning confusing, definitely take the time to find that mistake and correct your copy of the pattern. As you can guess, I enjoyed the pattern very much. That center flower is so beautiful, it's well worth some of those crazy rounds and the feather and fan section has a very comfortable rhythm, with four rounds of stockinette (did I mention that I love stockinette?!) and then one little round of cool patterning. Niiiiiiiice.

I don't really know why I'm bothering to tell you all this, since I'm sure you ALL have already knit one of these. I'm the last one. As usual. Well, acutally, since it's for Shannon's baby and I got the idea from her ravelry queue, I guess that means that Shannon still hasn't knit one! Hee, hee!

Almost exactly one year ago, two of my best friends threw me an amazing baby shower where all my knitbuddies made baby booties for wee one. This Saturday, I got a little payback when I got to go to one of those friend's own baby shower and bring a gaggle of itty bitty hats from the Knitsmiths.

My offering was the marshmallow bonnet, which I knit in Blue Sky Alpaca's most incredibly soft Handspun Organic Cotton. It's practically like cashmere, but no animal fibers (Shannon's allergic)! I knit this same pattern for wee one over a year ago but it must have happened in some baby-brain haze because I didn't remember anything about how it was constructed! The other hats are (almost) all from the Itty-Bitty Hats book, including a Stars hat from Johanna, a Marley hat from Thea, a pink stripey hat from Colleen, a Bunny Tails hat from Dani, and an Upside-Down Daisy hat from Lisa. Shannon was surprised and happy to be remembered by all her old Boston buddies.

I also did a little sewing for her new baby. Baby's grandmother is an incredible quilter, so I was pretty sure that baby would be all set with beautiful quilts, but when I happened to come across a fabric panel of one of Shannon's favorite children's stories, The Little Engine that Could, I knew I had to make her a little fabric book. The panel wasn't made to be a book - there weren't the right number of blocks and they weren't in proper page groupings for a book - so I had to do some finessing to make it work. Plus, it was all very, very basic blue check and Shannon is having a fabulous little girl, soooo I had to gather up fun and fabulous coordinating fabrics to pretty it up a little.

Despite the myriad difficulties that arose while I was making this (like the final book being too big to fit under the presser foot of my machine!), it was a pleasure to make. Whenever I got frustrated, the happy little train's chant of "I think I can, I think I can, I think I can" helped spur me on to finish it.

Lastly, the big present for Shannon's baby... see if you can recognize it....

Yes, it's an unfinished hemlock ring blanket! I tried my best to get it done in time. I had even started the bind off, but there was no way to get it blocked before the shower, so I wrapped it up as nice as I could for the ceremonial opening and then snuck it back into my bag to take home to finish. More pics of it blocking, etc. to come!

Best wishes to Shannon for the last couple of months of her pregnancy. Thanks for giving me a reason to make these wonderful projects and the opportunity to pay you back for my own awesome baby shower. We can't wait to see Cheezit in her little hats!