knitting a blanket for christmas {that's crazy}

My lovely sister, Laura, who has always supported by love of fiber and diy crafting requested a knitted blanket as my Christmas present to her.  This was back in November.  I informed her that there was no way that I would be able to finish the blanket before Christmas, not only because it would take for.ev.er to knit a blanket but also because I had so many other projects on my Christmas list.  She graciously offered to wait longer as long as I agreed to knit one for her.

My sister currently lives and works in Mexico.  While she is gaining valuable business and life experience abroad, I know she misses us loved ones here in the States.  So I decided to give the blanket an admirable effort to be finished by Christmas.  And with the help of super bulky yarn and size 15 needles, I came through with time to spare.

Laura's only specification was that the blanket be gray or navy.  These are her signature colors.  And other than that, I had free creative reign.  So, naturally, I chose a gold color.  See, I don't take orders very well.  I need complete creative reign apparently and I thought that gray or navy would be too boring for such a large project.  You can buy gray or navy knitted afghans just about anywhere, and I wanted to use a color that was a little harder to come by.

I chose the Winter Lace Afghan pattern from Lion Brand available for free on Ravelry.  I chose the pattern before the yarn and I really thought that the gold (it looks like butterscotch) would be a great fit for the beautiful lace pattern.  I increased the size of the borders because I like thick borders on my quilts and I assumed the theory would transfer to knitwear, too.  I love the result.

I had to stop the lace pattern after 6 repeats instead of 7 like the pattern calls for, but the blanket still measures a healthy 45 inches by 55 inches . . . perfect for throw.  And since I used super bulky weight yarn, the blanket is heavy, but it's intensely warm.

At Christmas time with my family, I heard her planning her next blanket request.  As long as it can wait until her birthday in April, I'm down with another.  And there's always next Christmas.