This is Celia’s Blankie, another modular-knit afghan from Carol Anderson at Cottage Creations. Anderson’s website is not set up for e-commerce or downloading patterns, but the pattern booklet is available on a number of websites and local yarn shops and she invites direct inquiries to her.
Miles of garter stitch is a big draw for me and so are Cottage Creations patterns. The instructions are very clear, but also quite chatty. Rather rustic drawings illustrate some sections of Cottage Creation patterns.
As with Rambling Rows, which you can check out here and here and four more here, when you finish Celia’s Blankie, there is no finishing. You will likely chose to work in the tails from the individual blocks as you knit and, if so, it’s off the needles and your finished blanket can be immediately put to use.
My blankie is knit in easy-care Plymouth Encore worsted. I knit the largest size square the booklet suggests and ended with a blanket that was 45 inches by 46 inches, including the 10-ridge garter stitch border.
Anderson leaves a lot of choices for the knitter, including the size, number and color-patterning of squares. Since it’s knitter’s choice, the pattern doesn’t spell out exactly how much yarn you’ll need. I found I was able to get 7 squares out of all but one of the Encore skeins, on US size 8 needles. This blankie took 3 skeins of each of the 3 colors I chose. The booklet provides photos of several blankets knit by several test knitters, with information on their choice of yarn and how much yarn they used. I selected one of the arrangements used by one of the test knitters. There isn’t any reason why you couldn’t put this pattern on steroids and knit a full size blanket. Just knit more squares.
For the border, I picked up 24 stitches in each square, working garter stitch in the round with my longest circulars. Garter stitch in the round means you knit one row, purl one row. I marked each corner with a stitch holder and then each knit row I increased one stitch (by knitting in the front and in the back) on each side of the marker. I bound off on a purl row.
Here’s a closer look at one of the mitered corners:
I’m pleased with the result:
