a baby blanket and Yarn!

I finally finished one of my many projects on the needles--a baby blanket. Some of you have seen me knitting baby stuff for months now, as this is for my fourth friend to have a baby this year. There must be something in the water back home, I swear.

So I started this on Thursday and finished it today. It took three skeins of Plymouth Encore Chunky, on size 10 needles. I knit it on the bias so I wouldn't have to figure out how many stitches to cast on, and increased one stitch at the beginning of each row. I alternated stripes of garter and stockinette stitch to give it some texture, which I think you can see better in the next shot.

And yes, it is for a baby girl, due in December.

And now, gratuitous yarn pictures! Ariel went to Rhinebeck this weekend and brought me back some sock yarn, which is on the left in the picture below. It's 80% wool, 20% nylon from Ellen's Half Pint Farm. The other yarn I added into the shot since it's never been photographed and Ariel gave it to me for my birthday back in September. It's Socks that Rock in Prism.

And now I can go back to my goal of actually finishing a pair of socks during Socktoberfest! Not with either of these, those, but hopefully I'll have more FOs soon.

Reading: The Overachievers: The Secret Lives of Driven Kids by Alexandra Robbins. I'm finding it fascinating, since I used to be one of those driven kids, but before it got so much more difficult to get into a good school. It's really an interesting read.