Monday, August 06, 2012

Shellspawn Blanket

A friend is having a baby (spawning) and I made a play on the parents' name for the title of this post/project name.

The pattern is Opart and the yarn is various acrylics I had in my stash. Canadiana was one. This is a garter stitch blanket knit in the round. I started it on dpn's after the first attempt at using 2 circs created giant holes in the fabric at the changeovers. Once it was bigger I switched to one circ. Given that the yarn I was using was worsted weight, I also went up a needle size, so I used an US8. Even with the change, there were rather substantial holes at the colour changeovers. spiral hole

After weaving in the ends, the holes all went away, though. But I was a bit concerned, I can tell you!
The final blankie:

spiral done

I am quite pleased with it. The only thing I didn't take into consideration is that the pattern calls for blocking into a square shape. Obviously, with acrylic, the blocking does not 'take' really well. But hey, the blankie is square-ish, and the visual swirly effect should make up for that, right? (and I REALLY did not want to saddle a new mom, who doesn't knit and thus is not familiar with the arcana of knitted projects and blocking with a blanket with a lot of special care instructions)

Overall I am quite pleased with the effect.