This is the blanket I made for my eighth great-grandchild. Today was the due date, but she hasn't arrived yet. The theme of the blanket was determined by her name. I looked at pictures of calla lilies on-line and made a small sketch of three from different angles. I scanned the sketch into Print Shop, enlarged it, and printed it out on graph. I started the blanket from the bottom, working her first name upside-down in shadow/illusion knitting, then did the flowers in the intarsia method, working loosely from the graph. At one point, I was working with seven ends of yarn across each row - they didn't get TOO tangled. I worked the bottom of the flowers in stockinette stitch and the top part in seed stitch. That gives a little difference in texture in the two sections, and is what causes a difference in shade in the picture. After finishing the flower part, I knit the name right side up in shadow/illusion knitting. Then I picked up stitches along the sides and knit her middle name on one side and her last name on the other side. (The illusion knitting appears as narrow stripes when looking at it head-on; the pattern shows up when looking at an angle.) After all of the knitting was done, I duplicate stitched the stems and leaves, working 'free hand.' I'm pleased with the way it turned out, but I wish I had used a size smaller knitting needle.
When I went to Hobby Lobby to buy another skein of the darker green (I couldn't believe they actually had one skein of the same dye lot I had bought more than a month before!) to finish the blanket, several multi-color yarns jumped into my basket and asked me to make them into hat and mitten sets to donate to kids at the local school in October. Here are the ones I've completed so far.
And finally, some tiny slippers for Calla and matching ones for big, three-year-old sister Lily.
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