So, after much thought and deliberation about what I was going to do with this weird color (it's neon green - like safety/tennis ball green!😵), I decided that I could perhaps make another Akachan no Mofu (赤ちゃん の 毛布 = Baby Blanket) - maybe something with a more modern flare to it. I looked through my stash and found that my mystery cream yarn plus, the remnants of the Chic blue multi and my Red Heart light grey yarn would be my starter palette. All I would need to do now is to find 2 more colours to round it out. So off I went to Walmart to find the remaining two (2) colours and found two (2) skeins of Red Heart Super Saver in a bright turquoise blue and a dark heather grey.
In the meantime, I needed to figure out what pattern I wanted to try out (as I didn't want to use the same pattern I used on my first blanket). So I scoured through my stitchionaries (I love these kinds of books sooooo much!😍) and in my Vogue Stichtionary Vol. 3, I found the perfect pattern: Stitch#136 Multi Basketweave. I had borrowed another book from the library: The Essential Guide to Color Knitting Techniques by Margaret Radcliffe where she talked about using patterns in stripes (something that I wanted to do with this blanket) and whaddaya know, she talked about the same pattern and even had a sample of what it would look like in stripes on page 35! It was destiny! 😍
Based on my previous Akachan no Mofu (赤ちゃん の 毛布), I knew that I would need to cast on 168 sts and would have to make about 298 rows or so to make it (nearly or about) twin sized. But the only issue was that I had a remnent amount of the multi blue and only two (2) balls of the neon green. And, I didn't want to swatch both of them to figure out gauge.🙄 So, being brave, I did a little math, sketched out my colour chart and pattern sequence and used this provisional cast on with the cream yarn so that I could start with the blue multi yarn and go from there. I basically started in the middle and went one way with one colour then go back to the other side and worked that colour. This way I would know how much of the other colours (light grey, cream, turquoise, and dark heather grey) I would need the limiting colour was the blue multi and neon green.
So, here's what I did:
The pattern was as follows: the st count is in multiples of 8 sts plus 4 sts (2 sts on each end)
P seq:
Row 1, 3, 5, & 7: K
Row 2, 4, 6, & 8: P2, *K4, P4*, repeat * 13 times, end k2
K seq:
Row 9, 11, 13, & 15: K
Row 10, 12, 14, & 16: K2, *P4, K4*, repeat * 13 times, end P2
Colour chart:
Bind off
dk heather grey = 8 rows of moss st
dk heather grey = 4 K seq & 3 P seq (60 rows)
lt grey = 2 P seq & 2 K seq (32 rows)
turquoise = 3 P seq & 2 K seq (44 rows)
cream = 1.5 P seq & 2 K seq (24 rows)
neon green = 1.5 P seq & 1 K seq (26) rows
cream = 1 P seq & 1 K seq (16 rows)
(Started here) blue multi = 1 P seq & 1 K seq (16 rows)
cream = 1 P seq & 1 K seq (16 rows)
neon green = 1 P seq & 1.5 K seq (20) rows
cream = 2 P seq & 1.5 K seq (28 rows)
turquoise = 2 P seq & 3 K seq (44 rows)
lt grey = 2 P seq & 2 K seq (32 rows)
dk heather grey = 4 P seq & 3 K seq (60 rows)
dk heather grey = 6 row of moss st
Bind off
Total size: 161.25 cm x 109.5 cm (63.5" x 43")
Wow - that was a total of 432 rows!! And it only took me three (3) months to finish this (and I wasn't really working on it daily so, it wasn't really three whole months). I think one of the biggest reason why it was so quick for me to make this is because the stitch pattern was much easier than the one I had chosen for my first blanket.
Here's what this one looks like:
Front
Back
Now, we just need baby #2 to enjoy it! :P
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