Since becoming addicted to knitting, I’ve slowly begun to expand my repertoire of stitches and abilities. When a friend of ours announced her pregnancy, I decided to take on that sacred convention of knitters and crocheters alike – the baby blanket.
I was going to use a pattern, but thought “Heck! I can just make a big rectangle!” Note to self: use a pattern next time, genius.
It’s not that the blanket turned out bad. In fact, it’s quite lovely and the mom-to-be loved it. It’s that it ended up a bit TOO rectangular.

baby blanket
I folded it to avoid showing how much width it has. It’s like four and a half feet by two feet. I would have made it longer to offset the width, but I just plain ran out of time and patience and knuckle dexterity. My mistake: not counting how many stitches I cast on, therefor making it way too long.
The good news is, there are baby blankets like this, called swaddling blankets. Basically, you wrap a newborn in it like it’s a burrito, and VOILA – swaddled baby! So I called it the baby burrito blanket. Goes well with salsa.
Instructions:
1. Cast on too many stitches.
2. Miscalculate how much yarn of each color you need, and then find that the yarn store is sold out of green yarn. Make do.
3. Knit using a garter stitch until your fingers hurt, then finally say “EFF IT!” and cast off.

Close-up baby blanket
4. Steam-block the blanket, even though that won’t fix the size.
5. Give to recipient and say you meant to have it that size.

Baby blanket, wrapped
6. Realize she might have the address to this blog, and the jig is up.