Tag Archives: Carol Anderson

Celia’s Blankie supersized

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Celia’s Blankie is a simple stylish baby blanket pattern by Carol Anderson, of Cottage Creations. Carol is well known for her chatty style in writing patterns. Lots of details are given. You feel as if she’s sitting in the room guiding you along. I like that. Her booklets can sometimes be hard to find in local yarn shops. But now the patterns are available through her website. Great move, Carol!

In my first Celia’s Blankie, I made it basically toddler-sized. This one almost covers a queen-sized mattress. It was designed as a stash buster. There’s almost 3400 yards of wool knit into this garter stitch blanket. The red and blue are Paton’s Classic Wool and the yellow, oh my that bright yellow, is Plymouth Galway worsted. Two no-nonsense, workhorses. Never mind how I managed to stash so much of these yarns, but it all had something to do with a sale.

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It’s 9 mitered squares wide and 11 squares long, with a 14 row garter stitch border all around. I’d be fibbing if I told you it was a quick knit.

It will be warm. It will cheer up a room. And it reminds me of all the fun my son used to have playing with his Legos.

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Celia’s Blankie: a Cottage Creations must-knit

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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:

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I’m pleased with the result:

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Another Lillie’s Little Sweater

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This is Lillie’s Little Sweater. Yep, another one. It’s knitted here in easy-care Plymouth Encore, a 25% wool, 75% acrylic that wears like iron and is soft enough for babes.

I shied away from this Cottage Creations pattern for quite awhile because I thought it too simple to hold my attention. My first impressions were wrong. Very wrong. You start at the sweet, mostly garter stitch hood and work your way down. There is something so satisfying about casting off without having your project piled up in pieces, awaiting your sewing and finishing work.The pattern is a simple, but not simplistic, design.This time Carol Anderson partnered with Joan DeBolt.

All Cottage Creations patterns are a luxuriously slow read. Anderson writes her patterns with good humor, good wishes, even planning a break for you at the midpoint of most patterns. She explains everything in tons of detail. And then, on the stuff that easiest to forget, she reminds you repeatedly to remember. You won’t be able to download the booklet. It will take a trip to your local yarn shop or a snail mail order to slowly bring the pattern to your door and the project to your needles. The slow way this easy pattern unfolds is part of the charm. Here’s another Lillie’s I recently knit.

Another “Babies and Bears” sweater

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Over the years, I’ve made about a half-dozen of these.This time I used the simple fair isle insert rather than the gurnsey-style knits and purls insert. Both are very sweet.This pattern, by Cottage Creations’ Carol Anderson and Kristi Williams, is a wonderful almost no-seam design. This time it’s knit in Cascade 220 Superwash. About a skein and a half, 330 yards, is all I needed for the six month size. Size 7 US needles worked for me.

My only modification is that I do a 3-needle bind-off on the hood, rather than try to graft garter stitch. I find getting the tension correct on that particular graft is very difficult and I only rarely can get it to look perfect.

Check out the gurnsey style insert here.

“Try it, you’ll like it.”

Rambling Rows, again

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It’s been a bit quiet lately in the knitting corner of the blog. That’s because I’ve been working on a large-sized Rambling Rows afghan. This wonderful pattern is from Cottage Creations’ Carol Anderson and Pat Penney. It satisfies all the garter stitch lovers among us. Garter stitch is the first stitch we learn as young knitters. Every time I return to it, it feels familiar and soothing.

This afghan has 55 mitered sections and is a major project for sure. This is my tenth Rambling Rows, the fifth full-sized one I’ve made. It is photographed above on a queen-sized bed. This one is knitted of Plymouth Encore. Easy care seems like a good idea with a project of this size.

I am a bit unsure of my color choice. But maybe cranberry, tan, brown, peach and green sort of work well, especially because this afghan will be living in a room with a cranberry accent wall.

Cottage Creations’ booklets are not available (yet) in downloadable form. But lots of on-line shops carry the Rambling Rows booklet as well as many local yarn shops.