My cousin's daughter, Railey (or should I say my second cousin) has always wanted to be a mommy. I was thrilled to hear that she was pregnant with her first child. I had been admiring this baby blanket on knitpicks.com and had been waiting for an excuse to make it. I made the blanket with knitpicks "comfy" pima cotton. It is a really soft yarn, and turned out nice and thick. I used a mattress stitch to sew it together. I even have yarn left over in order to make a few handtowels (hopefully). The pima cotton makes this a soft, machine-washable blanket. Since little Peyton lives in California (her daddy is a marine), the lightweight cotton is perfect for her.
I also love the quilted design of the piece. It made for easy knitting and was able to finish the blocks quickly. There was, however, one snag in the pattern. The "peony arrows" were not correct in the pattern. There was nothing in any notes about pattern errors, but when I made the arrow a complete 10 ridge rows, the block turned out way to big. I had to stop and play with it for awhile until I got it right. I ended up doing seven garter ridges so that the block wouldn't be too big and the rest of the pattern of the block didn't pull. With regard to the borders of each block, they want two garter ridges, but I did three. This way I was able to pick up stitches for the next round of color without too much pulling.
Now it is to be packaged up and sent off to Oceanside, California. Hopefully Railey will send a picture of Peyton and her new blanket for this blog entry.
