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.