Knitted Feather and Fan Blanket, Part 1

Before our first daughter was born, I started knitting this baby blanket with Appalachian Baby Design organic cotton yarn. I had actually purchased the yarn to make a hooded sweater for her, but because my knitting skill was beginner level, I realized that by the time I finished making her a baby sweater, she would have outgrown it. And so, I found a book of baby blanket patterns, which claimed that the blankets could be made in one weekend. I found a pattern that I liked and started knitting…

I don’t remember how many hours this blanket took to get to the size that it currently is, but I soon realized that I was not going to complete it in one weekend. Also, it was much smaller than I was anticipating for a baby blanket—probably because I was not using the yarn that the project recommended, and I was too much of a novice at that point to consider how much that would impact the outcome. (I want to try this pattern again with the recommended yarn!)

I stuffed the project in a drawer, and there it remained. I would see it occasionally and feel frustrated by my failure to complete the blanket, and try to ignore the fact that I hadn’t finished it. Since I was a beginner, my stitches weren’t very even, and I wasn’t highly motivated to pick it up again.

And then, earlier this year, I needed my size 13 needles for another project. The needles were not to be found in my knitting needle collection, and then it dawned on me that they were probably what I had used to make this blanket. So, I pulled the blanket out of the drawer and made the decision to pull the needles out with the plan of pulling out all of the stitches and using the yarn for something else. It’s funny, I didn’t even end up using my size 13 needles for the other project because they were the wrong length. But once the project was out of the drawer, I needed to decide what to do with it. I told my daughters that I was going to take it apart to reuse the yarn, and they both protested greatly, saying that it was too pretty to destroy. And so, I reconsidered, and last week, I decided to put my needles back into the project and start knitting again.

Besides being a great photo prop for other projects, I envision it draped over a chair or edge of a basket to add some cozy beauty to our home. No, it will never by used by my girls as a baby blanket, but I intend to finish what I started…even if it is nearly seven years later.

What WIP (works-in-progress) have you been avoiding?