mystery blanket

I'd like to interrupt the postings of baby sweaters to show you a Mystery Blanket. This is a (somewhat modified) version of the April project from Knitter's Almanac.



I've been fascinated with this pattern for a long time, and I finally had a chance to make it when I needed to make a baby blanket for my new cousin. For a long time now I've been thinking about the best way to join squares to make a blanket. When I read about this blanket, I knew I needed to try weaving the squares together. There are still some other ideas I have that I will hopefully try out on future projects, but this time I was looking for something that would work the first time. And it did work. I knit the squares out as the directions suggest, but I used different increases (I didn't want holes for the baby's fingers to get caught in), and added stripes to the squares. I also knit the blanket with worsted weight superwash wool instead of the bulky wool used in the pattern and made it smaller. And I used a regular cast-off because I wasn't trying to fool any knitters- this went to a non-knitting family. But otherwise, I followed the pattern.



I'm not thrilled with the way the colors came together- it's a little too much blue for me, even though it is a baby boy. But overall I'm pleased with it and I would certainly knit it again. The joins look neat and professional on both sides, which is more than I can say for any other blankets I have knit from multiple squares. And I think the garter stitch border works really well. And to top it all off, it was a quick knit!