FO – Rainbow Baby Blanket

Hi All,

Mama (aka Megan) and the family have received their package, so it’s time to start blogging about everything I made for Baby Rainbow (aka Rainy). In case you missed it, here are the Baby Mitten Socks and Tulip Stitch Headband I made for her and blogged about in the past.

Let’s start with the Rainbow Blanket. I knew that Megan might like a rainbow blanket. The first thing I did was start a Baby Rainbow board on Pinterest and send it to her to get an idea of the colors she was drawn to. She really liked the natural colors of the rainbow versus the pastel palette that I liked so I’m really happy that I sent the board to her first. I did not let her pick the blanket itself because I wanted it to be a surprise.

Next, I had to decide if I wanted to knit or crochet. Knitting takes longer; however crochet uses more yarn. After thinking about it, I knew I was starting so far in advance of her due date that I could do either. After that it was a simple agonizing choice of which blanket. Guys…there are literally hundreds of thousands of baby blankets out there! I was very attracted to the Honeycomb Throw by Red Heart just because of the way it looked. While browsing pictures of others FO’s in Ravelry, I saw a rainbow one and was immediately hooked.

I knew that I was going to have to buy yarn, even though I’m on a yarn diet, because I didn’t have all the colors of the rainbow. A lesson learned here…I had Red Heart Super Saver Solids in Lemon and Pumpkin. When I went to the store, I bought Caron Simply Soft in the other colors I needed, plus the sparkly white for the cloud appearance of the border / honeycomb pattern. Don’t do this! I repeat…do not do this! Although everything worked out in the end, the Red Heart was a thicker ply than the Simply Soft, even though it was listed as the same ply and weight. It had me really worried the entire time I was making the blanket.

One set of rainbow complete!

I swatched and didn’t like the fabric on the recommended needle size of US 10 (6.0 mm) so I went down to a size US 8 (5.0 mm). I also knew that I didn’t want it as big as the throw size from the pattern, so I had to do a little math to determine the proper size. I wound up casting on with 142 stitches. I needed 10 stitches total for both ends (the border is knit at the same time as the honeycomb pattern) and the honeycomb pattern itself was in multiples of 8 stitches + 4. My math was correct (yay me!) and the final blanket wound up being a perfect size of 32″ x 40″. She’ll be able to use this her whole life if she wants.

Also, this…for those who do not like finishing…this would be your worst nightmare. Look away if you must. Believe me, I was not going to wait until the end to weave in all those ends. I think if I would have waited, I would have never finished it.

Ends Galore!!!

I washed the blanket in Newborn Dreft and then steam blocked it since it’s acrylic yarn. It turned out super soft and snuggly and smells so good. Normally, I would list out all the information, however I’m going to send you to my Ravelry link this time for the project because there is just too much yarn to list and too many notes 🙂 All in all, I really loved the pattern and would definitely make this again. The honeycomb pattern itself was easy to memorize and a lot simpler than it looks.

Without further ado…the FO!

All folded and ready to go. This shows the true colors of the yarn…minus the sparkly part of the white.

Artistic shot 1

Artistic shot 2

Full blanket

The back even looks pretty!

Until next time, Happy Knitting!