Dandelion blanket and baby knitting

Ages ago, long before I knew how to knit, or knew any expectant parents to knit for, Jorth released her dandelion blanket pattern and I loved it.

I taught myself to knit in the 2020 lockdowns, and my Frocktails co-organiser Lisa kindly went down the baby making route, and so it was time for a Dandelion blanket.

The yarn is Heirloom Mystic 8 ply merino in an infuriatingly difficult to photograph pale green. It looked very blue in every photo I took so I've tweaked the colours so the wool is correct, although my rug is not that "warm" in real life.

I added a bit of extra width to the border around the blanket by casting on an extra two stitches, making the side borders 5 stitches instead of 4 and increasing the top and bottom border rows to 6 rows instead of 4 

It came out to exactly the right size once blocked, but I'd run out of yarn far too early. I did a bit of maths and worked out how many extra rows I'd effectively added by doing two extra rows at the start and two extra stitches per row thereafter. I should have been well within the final border but I was still about 10 rows away from starting it. I ordered two more balls of yarn to be sure of finishing safely.

I only needed about 10% of one of those balls, so then  I added a beanie and some booties. Both are free patterns from Ravelry: Basic baby hat by Heather Tucker and Newborn Booties by Priscilla Uloho

There was just enough cream wool left over from Portal the doorsnake for the trim. the booties are the 0-3 month size instead of the newborn size and they look comically long to me!