Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Sailboat Baby Blanket update & pattern


pattern is from the book The Shop on Blossom Street by Debbie Macomber Page 20 “Boats for Cameron”, I re-designed the pattern to be worked all in one piece adding in my own cables and seed stitch borders and using only the boat design from the book. There are 3 boat sections and 4 cables. You will need size 8 circular knitting needle either 24" or 29" in length and worsted weight yarn at least 1500 yds. This also depends on how long you would like the blanket, it may take less. I have 6 skeins of TLC Essentials by Red Heart ( coats & clark) color is light lake blue. (I am 12 rows into the my 2nd skein at this point. You will also need stitch markers and a cable needle.

Begin by making a copy of page 22 from the book because you will have to re-number the pattern rows to make it easier to follow. :)
Boat panel begins with 6 rows of stockinette stitch ( K 1 row, Purl 1 row). These are rows 2-7 from the book ignoring row 1. Now re-number the rows as follows: Row 8 becomes 7 , row 9 becomes row 8 and so on ending with row 27 changing to row 26 and rows 28-37, those become rows 27-30 which are 4 rows of stockinette. In between each sailboat panel I stuck in 4 rows of seed stitch but you could eliminate this part if you choose. Ignore the rest of pattern from the book.

The cable pattern I used is the following:
Row1: k2, p2, k6, ps, k2
Row2: k1, p1, k2, p6, k2, p1, k1
Row3: k2, p2, k6, p2, k2
Row4: k1, p1, k2, p6, k2, p1, k1
Row5: (Cable twist row)k2, p2, slip next 3 stitches to a cable needle and hold in back of work, knit next 3 stitches, knit 3 stitches from cable needle, p2, k2
Row6: k1, p1, k2, p6, k2, p1, k1

I cast on 148 sts ( 2 side borders of seed stitch 10 sts each) (3 boat panels of 24 sts each) (4 cable sections each 14 sts) start by knitting 10 rows of seed st for the bottom border. Grab 8 stitch markers ( PM=place marker)and begin knitting 10 sts seed stitch, PM, Row 1 of cable pattern (14 stitches), PM, work row 1 of boat panel ( this is your first row of stockinette, all knit), PM, row 1 of cable pattern, PM, row 1 of boat panel, PM, row 1 of cable pattern, PM, row 1 of boat panel, PM, row 1 of cable pattern, PM, 10 sts in seed stitch. Continue working with row 2 of boat panel
( all purl) and row 2 of cable.
Note that each boat panel starts and ends with 6 rows of stockinette, followed by 4 rows of seed stitch.
I use post-it notes to keep track of my rows,being sure to cable twist every 6th row.
Click on the picture to get a close up view
If you need help please leave a comment with your email address.