The first of the two camel/alpaca/merino blankets is finished! I feel like I should be dancing happily around the house, and in my head and heart so I am. In reality however, I am curled up in delicious warmth underneath this first blanket because I had forgotten how light and fluffy and delicious it is, how warm and yet never hot, like a cozy hug.
The finished blanket is roughly 5' x 7', a little small for use on a queen sized bed for more than one person, a little large as a throw. I say roughly because there are a few minor issues. It is not perfectly rectangular because some of the individual pieces were not perfectly rectangular.
Apparently, when I knit this, I was not particularly meticulous and made many errors. This is not surprising as I knit it in a mad rush and I have never been a person who puts things off to the last minute nor a person who works well when backed up to a deadline. I can and will pull through when a deadline looms, but I never manage by best work. I am more of the slow and plodding type. I am also the annoyingly organized type who usually sees a deadline and automatically counts backward to figure out how best to utilize my time so that I do not end up working in a mad panic as a deadline comes near. This is how I got through college carrying the maximum allowable class load and never pulling an all-nighter while still volunteering and having a social life. It is pretty much the way I still function, except that every now and then a wild thought messes up the works. That was what happened with the original blanket. I bought the yarn in mid November and thought I could knit a light and fluffy blanket as a surprise Christmas gift for George, a California-King sized blanket, no less. Ahh foolishness!
Still, as much as I am proud, stubborn, and egotistical, as much as I do not like being reminded of my failings -- who does? -- I also wanted this blanket to be salvaged into something I would actually use. Putting the blanket back together therefore became an exercise in making do. Overall, my efforts paid off. This is not a blanket that will be perfect on display, but it is a blanket to be used.
Assembly because an exercise in compromise. Luckily the yarn I chose, Plymouth's Baby Alpaca Grande, and the stitches I chose worked well. I knitted the squares together using a three-needle bind off, done backward, or inside-out, finished with the wrong-sides together so that the decorative seaming ridge would be visible on the outside face of the blanket. The gray of the baby alpaca grande is not the same as the gray of the blanket itself, but it works well in this use.
For the border I used a four-stitch knitted on i-cord, which I ended up adoring. I even loved knitting it, and generally I find I-cord tedious to knit. I felt like I was knitting a fluffy cloud. I loved the soft loftiness, and the way the i-cord added structure without too much weight.
Will I keep the blanket forever? Who knows. I still have to assemble the second blanket. Before that can happen I need to order more yarn. I had guessed that the seaming and the border would take 3 100-gram skeins. I actually used 244 grams. If you think this means I only need two more skeins to finish think again. The number of pieces and the layout of the second blanket is different, and there will be 20 inches of additional seaming involved. That 20 inches of seam, using a three-needle bind-off, will take 11 grams of yarn, 5 more grams than I have available, so three skeins it is. It will work out, because the baby alpaca can be used with the assorted odd bits of leftover blanket yarn to make a scarf or shawl or something.
For now, this the lightest and warmest blanket I own. Soon I will have two. Someday I might have something that rivals this that I like better, but for now I am content and there is no urgent need that must be filled.
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