A Taste of Honey

The Honey Baby blanket is finished and waiting for its recipient's arrival in February!

I turned the final corner on the edging in the middle of the week, and made great progress while catching up on some Nova episodes in the evenings. When I got to my knitting group Saturday morning, I realized the end was near. By early afternoon I had finished the edging, grafted it together, given it a good long bath and had it on the blocking board. Well, mostly on it.

My blocking board is measured out at 30"x48", with a one inch margin around it. I pinned the blanket right at the edge, and then drew the wires 6" past the short edge, pinning them right into the carpet so that part of the blanket was suspended just above it. Not ideal, but it worked. The blanket in the called-for yarn and needles is supposed to be 44"x44", but with my skinnier yarn and needles, 38"x38" looked about right -- nice and flat without distorting the pattern.

This was my first big complicated lace project with multiple charts. I really enjoyed it. Lace really gets your brain going and highlights the things I like most about knitting -- pattern and symmetry. But it's also about making something built around negative space -- creating little holes and pockets of nothingness that come together to create a thing that is quite beautiful. It's a satisfaction that is slow to arrive, but it's worth the wait.

Now I need to figure out how to present this to the little one's mother. With permission, I'll post some pictures of it wrapped around a little bundle of joy when she arrives in February.