Tree Rings

My mother in law turns 60 this Friday, and since the people you love only turn 60 once (unless you're my mom, who's still celebrating her 30th birthday), I felt that it called for a big knitted gift. I debated back and forth between a sweater or a blanket, and ultimately chose to knit her a blanket. I wanted to gift to be a surprise, and knew that if I made her a sweater, I would need her measurements, which would be hard to do without ruining the surprise. I mean, how do you ask someone their bust measurement "just out of curiosity"?  So, a blanket was the winning choice. Jake and I perused Ravelry, looking for something we thought she'd love, and ended up going with Tree Rings by Andrea Rangle, from Wool People 6.

(You'll have to excuse the lack-of-natural-light photos. It's staying lighter later and later, but it just wasn't enough for these photos!)

Ahhh, that lace edging. (Side note: do not just Google the word "edging" to see if it's spelled right. I was horrified by the results. Kids these days...) It was very time consuming, and kinda a pain in the ass, but so worth it. In total, the lace 24-row chart is repeated 48 times. It took me until somewhere around the 30th repeat to actually have the thing memorized. Once I did have it memorized, though, that helped speed up the process.

For the sake of time, I had to leave out the last repeat of the slipped stitch pattern. I was a little worried at first that it might make the blanket too small, but as soon as I laid it out to block, those fears went away. It's still really big! A great size for one person to snuggle up with.

I used Knit Picks Wool of the Andes in the Fedora colorway. It's such a great workhorse wool, and I think this blanket will last quite a long time, and will hopefully be well loved!