C and I went to the Joann going-out-of-business sale on my birthday weekend, and they had this Carrot colored Super Saver at a very good price. The conversation went, “Oh, Hannah would love that color!” “Hannah is moving into a new house in June.” “You’ve made cute things for Hannah but you made my other high school friends blankets when we graduated, did you ever make one for Hannah?” I, of course, LOVE making bespoke things for my kids and their friends. I consider it a high compliment when they want things I’ve hand made. And I make so many blankets just for fun then have to find a charity or someone to gift them to, it’s special to have someone in mind when making things. So, of course 10 skeins of orange yarn came home with us. (Hannah’s favorite color but definitely not mine, though this isn’t an obnoxious orange.)
C and I discussed making Hannah’s blanket the same stitch pattern as a blanket I made in green for C that she really likes. But when I actually started it, I decided to try Alpine stitch, which looks similar, just to be different and to maybe make it more interesting since it’s a 4-row repeat, rather than a 1-row repeat.
The initial ribbing and hdc divider row was 108g. (I will need to stop the body when I have that much remaining of the last skein.)
June 1, 2025
Note to self: never make a big blanket with Red Heart Super Saver again. It is still gross and scratchy when working up, even if it does soften up after washing.
After getting a skein and a half into the Alpine Stitch, I realized the integrated ribbing border doesn’t work well with Alpine. Every row of the border stitches (FPDC/BPDC) is roughly the same height as an HDC, but the Alpine rows alternate between SC and FPDC/DC, so the edges would grow at a different rate than the body of the blanket.
It probably would have worked OK if I blocked it, but I had accidentally done 13 stitches on the border edges rather than 12 which was confusing and caused me to miss a border stitch many rows back. Since I needed to rip out 2/3 of the rows of Alpine, I decided to go all the way back to the bottom ribbing and switch to Seedling Stitch (same as I had done C’s blanket in). That way I could fix the right/left edge border (6 ridges per side, rather 6 on one and 7 on the other) and the simpler stitch pattern will be harder to mess up. Plus I like the fact that Seedling Stitch is reversible.
Fortunately there’s not a strict deadline for this blanket because it is slow going.
After getting back to the magic knot that indicates the end of the first skein, the height is 6.5”.
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