Blanket-lishish

Emma is feeling the pressure; last night I came home from an awesome dinner devoured at the bar at Sushi Yasuda (yum! except for the urchin, ick!  you were right, Amanda, I didn't like it - I swear it was like eating crunchy snot) where Amy and I celebrated a friend's birthday, to find Emma  hunkered down, eyes glazed over, staring at the pile of 643 646 contest entries (apparently I missed a comment.  Oops). 

The apartment reeked of catnip.  I told the cat to focus, to pull herself together and back away from the 'nip, but she just flopped sideways and writhed around on the ground, mewling and begging for a belly rub.  She has no misplaced priorities.  Unlike some of us, she has no trouble sleeping at night.  Or during the day, for that matter.

While I have tried to impress on her that today is the deadline, that word is meaningless to a cat, so this morning I amped up the motivation. I left Emma rooting happily in the contest entrants, working herself up for the big night.  I'm hoping that the unopened can of tuna I buried under those little slips of paper provides proper incentive.  I tucked the catnip out of paw's reach.

In the meantime, while we wait for Emma to get into the proper frame of mind for winner-choosing, I want to show you the Circle of Friends baby blanket that the Spiders knit for Amanda and presented at her baby shower last Saturday.  We'd heard a few nightmare stories about blankets gone wrong with this pattern, but we barged ahead anyway.  I'm glad we did.

Other than the fact that the blanket could use a good blocking, you wouldn't know from this picture that the last end was woven a hefty five minutes before the gifting.  Some frantic last-minute knitting proved Schrodinger to be the quickest end-weaver in Manhattan.  When she, Steph, Virginia and Nancy arrived at my apartment, the blanket looked like this:

 

But after a few minutes of their magic:

(sorry about the surprised!! picture - but this was our only "action" shot)

it looked like this:

Okay, actually a few ends are still unwoven in that photo, but we had to snap it quick before Amanda arrived, then finish those last bits on the sly.  I never planned to throw parties where people slip secretly into the bedroom with needles and glasses of alcohol, but apparently now I do.

Lots of Spiders took turns at the blanket, each knitting a half a strip or so before passing it along.  We then collected the strips and I seamed those together (okay, I might not have slept the night before the party.  Sometimes I forget to ask for help).

We used Knitpicks Swish Superwash yarn in 8 colors, knitting on size 4 needles.

Some of the gauges varied, but it really didn't matter so much in the end.  We came together and made a blanket that will show this new Spider-mite that she is loved.

Comments

[Sarah]

Such a fabulous gift - beautiful colours and so great to see all that friendship in knitted form

Thanks for the best book list ever in the last post - sending tuna bribes to Emma

[Stacey]

What a fabulous group of knitters! You are all blessed with this gang, and the blanket is the icing on the cake! I love the action shot - those are faces of determination!

[Veronique]

Wow! The blanket is gorgeous! The Spiders strike again :)

[Nachaele]

What a wonderful present! It is gorgeous! :)

[Lety]

What a nice, beautiful, and thoughtful gift!

[Lin]

That is such a great thing to make together!

[Tanya]

Such a fantastic and meaningful gift!

[gleek]

the blanket turned out great! i'm so happy! :) it was a lovely party katie. thanks for hosting.

[schrodinger]

So glad that the blanket turned out way better than I could have anticipated - but then I can be such a party pooper, negative-pants at times :) Speaking of which, I think I will hate you forever for posting that end-weaving picture.