Friday, June 6, 2008

Benjamin's Baby Blanket

This is my 1st FO in 2008!!! Yes, it is June. Yes, it took me over 6 months to complete. Yes, this has been my most favorite project to date! I was able to give this blanket to my sister this past weekend when we were in Flo-town. However, with all the hub-bub of the trip, I forgot to take a picture of Benjamin with the blanket. Oh well!


Benjamin's Finished Blanket!


The pattern that I chose is the Renee Baby Blanket from Staci Perry over at verypink.com. There is such a sweet and endearing story behind her pattern that it made my heart melt and I knew this was the perfect blanket for Benjamin! I made a few slight modifications to the original pattern. There are supposed to be 5 panels of the lace, but I cut it down to only 4. Also, she includes fringe on the end, but I felt that leaving the fringe off makes it more manly.

Since the pattern is lacy, I wanted to take it's manliness further by using some of Tess' Designer Baby and Sock yarn in a color stream of blues, yellows, and greens. While I love the texture and feel of this yarn, I don't think that I will use it again!!! It was heavily overdyed to the point where my fingers turned blue after knitting it. I spoke to my wise knitters over at the Sip n' Knit and asked what I should do to set the dye. They told me I had to give it a boiling vinegar bath.

Boiling vinegar bath??? I couldn't believe that I had spent 6 months on this wonderful blanket and now I had to put it in a pot, on a stove, and boil it in water and vinegar. I was so scared to do this. So, I took the blanket outside to get a couple pictures before I potentially destroyed it!!!


Blanket posing in the sun!

But I don't wanna boil Benjamin's blanket!


Okay...it's in the pot...the water and vinegar are added...no turning back now!

In the end, I did 2 boiling vinegar baths, at least 3 wash cycles, and about 10 rinse cycles to get all the vinegar and soap out. It was a 2 day process, but in the end, the blanket came out squeeky clean and no longer bleeding all over me.

I couldn't live with myself if I turned my nephew into a Smurf because of my yarn choices.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

So awesome. :)

Pheelya said...

Holy Rinse Job Batman!!

The blanket looks beautiful!

Anonymous said...

As usual, your project could not have been more beautiful. It was so great to have you all home for the weekend. Come again soon (when it is cooler in the house).
MOM