My Big Fat Baby Blanket

Pattern: Square Shawl from Elizabeth Zimmerman's Knitters Almanac
Yarn: Rowan Little Big Wool (507 Brown), Rowan Big Wool (043 Forest)
Needles: 10mm Addi Circulars
Cast on: November 2011
Cast off: November 2011

This is a little pram/cot sized version of my Big Fat Bed Blanket (hence the name). I used a couple of balls of pale brown that were left over from my blanket and bought a ball of green for the edging to make it up to a sensible size.

The edge is in moss stitch to help to keep the blanket flat. As the yarn for the edge is thicker it has a bit of a ripple to it which I quite like. I like the colour combination too, perfect for the little bruiser that it has gone to.

My Big Fat Bed Blanket

Pattern: Square Shawl from Elizabeth Zimmerman's Knitters Almanac
Yarn: Rowan Big Wool, Rowan Little Big Wool (501 Pink, 507 Brown, 511 Green, 512 Blue), Rowan Biggie Print, other oddments of Rowan chunky wools
Needles:10mm bamboo DPNs, 10mm Addi Circulars (1 x 90cm cable, 2 x 1m cable), 10mm Inox circular (80cm cable)
Cast on: October 2010
Cast off: April 2011


This project had been percolating for a while before I cast on. I had a bunch of  chunky yarn remnants from my early knitting projects including a sweaters worth of yarn that I reclaimed from a very unflattering FO! I bought some additional yarn to make mittens for Christmas 2009 knowing that the remnants would be added to this project.



I used the Square Shawl pattern from EZ's Knitter's Almanac. I decided not to add any kind of lace or cable pattern but to just stick with stripes. I didn't plan the sequence of stripes but just looked at what I had when each ball ran out and decided then whether to change colours or knit another ball of the same colour. I kept an eye on the amounts I had, using the small quantities early on. I only set myself 1 rule and that was that each colour had to do a full round. The stripes are different widths depending upon the amounts I had of each colour and what had fallen before the current stripe. I tried to mix up wide and narrow stripes to keep the irregular look. I had to rip a few rows at one point as I had overestimated the amount of the bright blue I had and it ran out midway around. It's a great pattern, and the circular cast on is pretty nifty (it did take me a few goes as I'm rubbish with a crochet hook).


This was a bit of a monster knitting project and by the end I was working with 4 large circular needles and knitting sat on my bed as I couldn't wrangle the project whilst sat in a chair! It did keep me warm while knitting it and I had to keep fighting the urge to stop knitting and take a nap. A blanket (or blankets) are a necessity at home as the heating is only turned on for a few days over Christmas each year and this is living up to expectations on the toastyness front. Which makes me very happy. I cheated a little (a lot!) and only wove in the ends that were close to the edge or the corner shaping (don't tell anyone will you?) and would show from the front (there were an awful lot of ends to weave in after all).



Oh, I should probably mention that the blanket comfortably covers my double bed (I think it would happily cover a king size). Definitely a Big Fat Bed Blanket!

Baby Surprise Jacket

Pattern: Baby Surprise Jacket from Knitting Workshop by Elizabeth Zimmerman
Yarn: Rowan Wool Cotton in 907 (deepest olive) and 900 (antique)
Needles: 4mm bamboo circular
Cast on: January 2011
Cast off: January 2011



This is another of the kids kits that I put together last year and the first of my 11 in 11. I went away for a couple of days over New Year and grabbed this to keep me going on the train and in front of the telly. The pattern has been in my queue for a really long time. In fact I bought the book in July 2007 after seeing this version by Brooklyn Tweed.



The yarn had also been in the stash for a long time, since 2005 I think. I had planned to make a Handsome Hound but never quite got around to it. Since I sold the Lucinda Guy book that the pattern is in two years ago it is unlikely to get made now!



As I had a limited amount of yarn available; 2 balls of antique and 1 of deepest olive; I decided to make the jacket striped. 4 rows of white then 2 of green. I had intended to knit this without any alterations as it is the first time I have knit this pattern. However, I did end up making 2 small adaptations. Firstly when told to knit 10 bumps (2 rows of garter stitch = 1 bump) across the center section I only did 9. This was to keep the stripes correct. The other alteration was to pick up stitches around the neck, knit a row and then cast off. This was to neaten the neck up and to make it match the front edges. The buttons again came from Franklins in Salisbury.



Having knit this pattern once I can understand why people return to it time and again. I have a feeling that this will not be the last BSJ that turns up here!