Moving Blanket

A few months back, I had a hunch I would be moving mid-summer. I did what anyone planning a move would do and... took inventory of my craft supplies. I almost fainted from the sheer volume of stuff I've amassed just living in this apartment for three years. The biggest culprit? Yarn! (With fabric coming in at a close second...)

So, rather than moving a bunch of balls of yarn, I decided it would be better to knit all of my shiny acrylics into a blanket. Because moving one heavy, foldable thing is easier than moving a lot of small, awkward to pack shapes. Makes perfect sense, right? (Though, as I type, the rest of my yarn is chucked in trash bags and ready to move... because I'm a classy lady!) 

I wish I had taken better photos of the sheer amount of yarn I had before starting this blanket. Here's my acrylic stash before. You can't quite see the magnitude of it from this aerial view... 

I decided to go for a knit pattern that I didn't have to seam. Otherwise I knew I would never finish in time for moving! I cast on for Garter Squish by Stephen West. It's a free pattern for a garter stitch blanket. A pattern for a simple garter stitch blanket seems silly at first, but he incorporates an i-cord edging that gives the blanket a polished look. I would have never come up with that idea on my own!

Here's the blanket in progress... I think this is only halfway! You can also see the yarn ends in this photo--every time I ran out of yarn, I left a tail and started knitting with a new ball wherever the first skein ran out.

Stephen West's pattern recommends a US 15 needle and two strands of yarn held together, but I used a US 17 needle and three strands held together for more gradual color changes and a tighter gauge. I still cast on the recommended amount. On my larger needles and with three strands, this created a full-sized blanket instead of a throw.

I also dropped a loop, which was a pain to fix! After casting off, I found two more dropped loops I'm choosing to ignore.

Here you can see an example of the gradual color changes.

And this is the blanket in all of its glory! I love this thing so much! This is it all folded up... it's not stuffed with anything! I could have sworn this blanket weighed 15 pounds, but it ended up weighing a little less than 10. I can't sleep without a heavy blanket, so this one is perfect for this summer when I'm traveling to my friends' houses and they've all moved on to using weather appropriate bedding. 

And here it is in a more natural state--

I tried to count up the colors in this blanket, but I lost track after 20! Which means I knit up over 20 balls of yarn in this blanket alone. Granted, most of the yarn was leftover from other projects, but triple-stranding this blanket made a significant dent in my yarn stash. I'm tempted to make one from my leftover wool!

Happy making!