The Storytime Blanket

When we traveled to Italy early last February, I brought with me the Hemlock Ring Blanket that I'd started just for our road trip. I knit in the car, in the hotel during the children's naps during the day, and a bit each night before we settled into bed.

I decided to make this blanket just a bit bigger than Jared Flood had originally intended so that the children and I could all fit under it to snuggle and read books together (my husband, sadly, is incredibly sensitive to wool. Terrible. I know.) It was dubbed The Storytime Blanket, and Sparky and Max were excited about it, watching it grow under my needles and asking again and again when it would be finished. I liked the idea that my memories of Italy were being knit into the fabric, and the repetitive feather-and-fan lace motief was perfect for the stop-start nature of my knitting during our time there.

When I at last cast off, I had every intention of blocking it, but...eventually I stuffed it into one of my rubbermade stash containers, burying it under a bunch of stuff so that I wouldn't have to look at it, feeling guilty. This was strange, because I love blocking things, but pregnancy puts my head in a weird place. I was in the 1st trimester with Billy, and Greg had just deployed, so I suppose the wierdness was multiplied. Anyway.

Recently Becca posted some blocking pics, and I remembered how transformative and almost magical the blocking process is. With this in mind, I dug the blanket back out of the stash.





On Wednesday, Sparky and I soaked it and then pinned it out on our guest bed while the younger three children took their naps.



I knit it out of Eco Wool in one of the natural colors, and worked the longer chart that someone in the Yahoo KAL drew up (sorry, no links, you'll have to locate it yourself because it's been too long for me to remember).

Now that it's dried and un-pinned, I am so happy with it.


It seems from the number of these projects on Ravelry, a bunch of other people must have gotten excited over this pattern as well. :)



Every detail about it pleases me, from the wholesomeness of the natural wool, to the beautiful pattern stitches.





After the bunchy look of the unblocked piece, it's always kind of miraculous to me how wonderfully drapy it becomes afterwords.



And according to Quality Control, it is, indeed, the perfect thing for curling up underneath with a good book.



For more details, you are welcome to visit the project page on Ravelry.

I know I promised wool pr0n today, but I'm going to save it for next post. For now I'm going to go make myself a cup of hot chocolate and find a good book. No, actually I'm just about to make dinner. Pancakes, anyone?