In the fall of 2008, I was inspired to make a burnt orange and white star baby blanket for a dear friend who also happens to be a UT grad. At the time, I didn’t know if she was planning another baby, but it just felt like a good idea. I sent the blanket to the Texas State Fair and it won honorable mention.
Fast forward to 2014. My good friend welcomed a daughter into the world, and I congratulated her in the best way I know, with very tiny socks.

Pattern: Phalanges by Clare Devine
Needles: 2.25mm
Knitting Time Needed: 9 hours (faster if you’re proficient at sewing in a picot edging)
Yarn: In the end, the Mommy-to-be and I dove into her stash and came up with burnt orange sock yarn. I wanted the orange to be Longhorn approved and her stash is heavy with burnt orange options.

Ps. When baby girl has outgrown these socks, I’ll to turn them into Christmas ornaments. One for baby girl and one for her priceless mom.

Pps. Check out what others have finished at:

Wisdom begins in Wonder

Natural Suburbia

A while back, I recommended a baby blanket pattern to a friend that was just starting to cable. It turned out not to be that easy for a first cabling project and she had a little bit of a hot mess on her hands after the second cross. Unsure which row she was on, she was getting ready to throw up her hands. Since the pattern was my idea, I told her I’d take a look, get it straightened out, give it back to her, and tell her which row was next…as long as she wasn’t in a big hurry. She wasn’t.

Fast forward a couple of months. I’m mentally in between projects and I wanted something soothing to work on while I watched Glee. Since, I’ve knit this project before, unknitting it and figuring out what was going on was just what The Doctor ordered.
Before:

After:

They don’t look that much different, but basically, I just unknit a couple of rows and then read the knitting to see which row was next. I was going to knit a few rows just to help her get into the flow of the blanket, but I remembered that I’m a much more uptight knitter (I know. You’re shocked.) than she is and the last thing she needs is 3 or 4 TIGHT rows in the middle of the baby blanket, plus… it was getting late.

Since, it is finished object Friday, here’s my finished blanket in a blast from the past.

Ps. Check out what other folks have finished at Tami’s Amis and Fiber Arts Friday!

The goal of the Iknitarod is to pick a project and start with the Iditarod racers and finish before the last musher crosses the finish line (and the red lantern is awarded). Iknitarod racers could also opt to pick several incomplete projects and complete those as long as they felt sufficiently challenged.
I cast on February 27. Since the Iditarod started ceremonially on Saturday, March 3 and for real on March 4, this might seem like I jumped the gun a little bit, but since the first blanket took 31 days, I managed to start early and still feel challenged.

Other things that help me sleep at night include the fact that I spent my Friday night knitting time knitting and then unknitting the same rows. I had pretty much just finished the border by Saturday morning. It seems that when doing a second blanket that is identical to the first one, you should still check the pattern regularly and not assume you have it memorized. We all know where that will get you. Ahem, it will get you some unknitting practice anyway.
Saturday (March 3), I knitted and watched TV/movies (London Blvd, the Prince & Me 4 [which was surprisingly better than the Prince & Me 3]) and was THIS far along by the evening.


Sunday (March 4), I knitted and watched more TV/movies (TH wasn’t feeling that great so I watched BCG, Once Upon a Time, Real Steel[which I recommend] and From Prada to Nada [which was cute]).


Monday (March 5), it looks like Lance M. is picking up speed and Aliy is in the top 5.
Aliy gets to number 4. I knitted Monday night during The Bachelor and more Once Upon a Time. I’m starting to pull for Aliy to win!
Two rows of Scotties done!

Tuesday (March 6), I’m about to start the third Scottie row and Aliy is number one followed by Kelley Griffin and Jeff King.
Mid-way through the day, it looks like Lance, John, then Aliy.
That night, it was Aliy, John Baker, Lance, Hugh Neff, and Ray Redington, jr.
Finished another row of scotties that night.

Wednesday (March 7), knitted during the hockey game and made quite a bit of progress.


Thursday (March 8). During the Iditarod, there is a mandatory 24 hour break, so I elected to take a 24 hour break myself to keep with the spirit of the thing.

Friday (March 9), the Leaf was getting a software update, so I did some knitting at the Nissan dealership in town. At this point, I was getting a little nervous, so I looked up some details and the fastest Iditarod was almost 9 days. That seemed a little soon until I recalled that I had until the red lantern was awarded (last musher crossed the finish line) to knit.


…and so it went until Tuesday (March 13). Aliy was trailing Dallas Seavey by about an hour and it looked like he’d win late that night unless something untoward happened. As soon as I got home, I knit like the wind for a while and then got ready to watch the finish.
As I opened the web feed up on my reliable PC, it black screened.
Now, let’s be clear. TH’s PC misbehaves. He upgrades hardware and he changes out things and he asks a lot of his PC. He’s a hardcore gamer. I do things like blog and tweet. As long as I don’t get a virus, I expect mine to work or at least not die when it is MOST inconvenient.
I rebooted it……pulling up the feed and…..black screen.
Imagine profanity here.
TH was busy gaming with folks online and I didn’t want to seem like the crazy high-strung person that I am (even though I’m fairly certain he might know), so I shrugged my shoulders and went in the other room to just cast off and resigned to check twitter later. But, genius that he is, given that I’d been slightly obsessed for almost two weeks, from the depths of the Blizzard ‘verse, he said, “why don’t you just go get my laptop and watch the finish?” Genius! THAT kind of problem solving is why I married him! (Yes, I should have thought of it, but I was too busy being disappointed to think).

So, I set the laptop up on the bed where I could see and began to cast off as I was waiting for Dallas to get to Nome. The world was in perfect harmony! It turned out that I was a little bit excited as my first cast off was seriously tight, so I ripped it out and as I was casting off for the second time, Dallas Seavey won the Iditarod 2012. It was sooo exciting to watch him cross the finish line. Having not watched this before, I was struck by how few people were at the finish line, but then I realized they might stand in the cold for 3 hours and only see 3 people cross the finish line this year. Dallas thanked and congratulated his dogs and then my feed died, so I didn’t get to see Aliy come in second, but I took it as a sign from the universe that it was time for me to hit the hay and went to bed gleefully.

….and so each twin has a blanket – completed before their arrival and I am MORE than a little pleased with myself.

Ps. Happy Birthday, Grandma!