This is the pretty thing I’ve been working on for the last month or so. An easy slip stitch baby blanket. Soft and cushiony, with lots of texture. It will make a great floor play surface for a young one. It is Hakucho‘s free pattern:  Circle Baby Blanket. It’s actually her Circle Cloth pattern, on steroids, and with a cool new edge treatment.

Mine is knit with eight skeins of Plymouth Encore, a worsted weight (75% acrylic 25% wool). The finished size is 35 inches by 40 inches. Hakucho recommends Lion Brand Pound of Love. One of the more unfortunate names for a yarn, but Pound of Love puts this blankie at a more affordable price point than Encore. And it’s not bad yarn. I was just looking for something softer.

You need to have a high tolerance for repetition to enjoy knitting this blanket. I do. I like to put myself on knitter auto-pilot and just cruise along. Every once in awhile, I started (and finished) a small project while knitting this, more to give myself some instant gratification rather than break the monotony of knit 4, slip 2, knit 4, slip 2, knit 4 slip 2, knit 4, slip 2, purl 4, slip 2, purl 4, slip 2, purl 4, slip 2. (Just giving you a taste of how incredibly easy this rather complex-looking honeycomb is to knit up.) During a recent spring vacation I knit nine different circle cloths and I was anxious to be one of the early adopters of the blanket version.  Maybe try a cloth first, and then imagine it on the wide screen.

Thank you, talented designers like Hakucho (“Deb” from Massachusetts), for your generous gifts to the knitting community.