Come Sail Away

Gift knitting is exempt from my vow of monogamy to Death By Cables. I have no proof, but I am inferring that this is the case since nothing awful happened during the production of the Knitting For Peace messenger bag. Had I offended the Knitting Goddess by working on a project other than Death, I am sure she would have let me know. I have the world's ugliest knitting project stuffed behind the sofa as proof. I am sure if I had cast on for something else for myself, my yarn would have burst into flames. There will probably be a lot of gift knitting around here for a while.

Last night I picked up Death, gathered my glasses and charts and a pencil and my tools, sat down to work on it...and cast on for a baby blanket for the friend I told you about back in December who is having the unexpected blessing. I had lunch with her last week and she is nearly seven months along, making the knitting of a baby blanket a matter of some urgency. I've been having trouble finding a pattern I like. I wanted something with boats, or waves, or some watery theme. She lives in a house overlooking the marina, her husband owns Boat Depot, they love to go out on their boat, and she's decorated the baby's room in a nautical theme. I had already bought this lovely, dark heather blue superwash wool (KnitPicks Swish Worsted) for just this purpose. I swatched a few times with different patterns, but nothing appealed to me. Then, inspiration struck. All by my little self, I did this:

And, people...I am proud. I know you washcloth knitters are scratching your heads and thinking, "So?" But I've never made a washcloth, and this is my first attempt at this type of embossed pattern. And it turned out so well!

See the sails? The mast? The little flag on top? What new mommy wouldn't love a blanket like that for her baby boy? [Yes, it's a boy. Nicholas Andrew. I can't tell you how relieved I am that this child has a name I can say without cringing. My friend is a free-spirited sort, and exactly the type who would be likely to name her son Walnut, or Rocky, or Betelgeuse. Don't look at me like that. We have friends who named their new arrival Jesse James. And that's what they call him. Not Jesse, or JJ, or Stinky. Nope. "Jesse James." They're not from New Mexico or Texas, either. They live in New Jersey.]

But I digress.

I have been taking notes on exactly how I made those little boats so that I can duplicate them. See?

Once I'm done, I will make it available here as a free--and hopefully more legible--pattern, so if you just have to have those sweet little boats, you can. I'll even try to figure out how to get a chart into electronic format, but no promises there!