Handknit “Seaside Throw” Baby Blanket

Hey all, Farmer’s daughter bean here with another “make” post.

Believe it or not, I’ve been knitting this blanket since February! So, you can imagine how happy I was to finally finish it a couple weeks back and get it mailed off to Oregon…yeah! Even though I haven’t even seen a picture of him yet (get on the ball, folks!) I made this blanket for my new nephew Colton, who was born on April 9th. Ironically enough, Colton was born on the same day as his father, my younger brother, Mike.

The pattern was altered a bit from a larger one found in the book Debbie Bliss Home where it is simply called the “Seaside Throw.” I used Lion Brand Cotton-Ease, which helped to keep the cost of it from sky-rocketing as the pattern calls for a lot of yarn. Five skeins to be exact.

It’s also the first time I’ve knit a guernsey pattern — which is based on a traditional English pattern used to make sweaters for fishermen — which wasn’t exactly hard to make, but boy was it ever time consuming. I did get to learn how to cable and make a bobble as well, which was actually quite fun.

But again, it did take a LONG TIME to make this blanket. So long in fact that the girls in my Stitch ‘n Bitch group started giving me a hard time about finishing before he outgrew it…ha! But, now that I am done, I think it was well worth the journey…however long it took!

I haven’t heard what the family thinks of it yet, but since I’m still waiting for the birth announcement, I’m not going to hold my breath!

For now, I can just hope they can get some use out of the blanket before it gets too warm up there and then I’ll take my own pictures of Colton with his new “blanky” when I visit them in July.

My New Obsession…Ravelry!

Farmer’s Daughter Bean here again with some online obsessing of my own…

My friends Tevana and Nic have been trying to get me to join this thing for months and this week I finally did! Join Ravelry.com that is! Ravelry is an online knitting/crocheting community where you can keep track of your yarn, tools, and pattern information, and look to others for ideas and inspiration.

The content on Ravelry is all completely user-driven and though the site is still in beta, so far it has been super easy to use. And now…I am hopelessly addicted! All I think about is adding my stash — yarn stockpiles for those of you not in the “know”– books and pictures of my completed projects to the site.

Another thing I really like about Ravelry is that you can see what other people have made from the same patterns you have or the same yarn. If you even ever thought about knitting or crocheting before, you have to check this site out…it’s quite fascinating!

So far I’ve listed all of my books (shown in the pic of my virtual library shelf above) and about 50% of my needles (below). As for adding my yarn stash inventory, I haven’t even skimmed the surface of that yet. Maybe that’s because doing so would require that I finally clean out my overflowing craft closet! Eek…

I think my favorite thing about Ravelry right now is that it gives me something to “nerd out” on while Tom re-watches the “Lost” Season Finale for the fifth time and obsesses over tracking down our “missing in action” Wii Fit — which still hasn’t arrived from Amazon!

So, while Tom fires up the Tivo one more time, off to Ravelry I go…