A Marathon

Yay!  I did it.  I finished knitting the replacement blanket in record time.



It took me two and a half days of constant knitting, but I managed to finish it by last Sunday.  The whole family was gathering for a celebration of the three January birthdays in the family and I thought it would be so great to be able to hand it over to Mickey much sooner than he expected.  As a matter of fact, when I gave it to him, he just looked at me and asked if it was really done!  When he discovered that it was, it never left his side the whole day!  I don't know when I've ever seen so happy!  It made me want to cry just looking at him. 

So, for those who are interested in the details.  I used about 3 1/2 balls of Sirdar's Snowflake Chunky yarn.  I cast on 91 stitches with U.S. Size 11 needles and knit 18 rows.  Then I did a kind of checkerboard pattern.  I knit 14 stitches then 9 stitches in purl, 9 stitches in knit, etc. and ended with 14 knit stitches.  On the next row, I knit 14 stitches, then knit 9 stitches, purled 9 stitches, etc. and knitted the last 14 stitches.  I repeated this for 12 rows, then I alternated the blocks for the next 12 rows, until it was long enough, and finished with 18 knit rows.  Really simple.  You don't see much stitch definition with this yarn, so there wasn't really a point of doing anything fancy.  The blanket ended up being 40" by 38".  A perfect size to snuggle under your chin, especially if you're young!

Can you believe that I forgot my camera to record the moment??  It doesn't matter, because that grin will remain in my memory forever!