I had something of a new experience the other day. I started to really, truly feel like a “real” knitter. I’ve been knitting a baby blanket for a good friend of mine who had a baby on September 5th (after an hour and ten minutes of labor, lucky girl!). I picked the Pinwheel Blanket in a pretty blue and yellow variegated yarn, and I picked up some blue for the border. The whole time I was knitting, though, I was puzzling about what I was going to do with the border. I researched a lot of possibilities, and finally picked out a lace-point edging out of Nicky Epstein’s Knitting on the Edge. I figured out how to attach it to my blanket by some trial and error (having never knit a sideways edging before, much less on to live stitches), and when I finally got done with the main part I was really excited to start the edging. I did some math, and then did some random decreases among the pattern repeats of the blanket to finagle the correct number of stitches.

I deliberated for a while, did some swatching, and picked a needle size and started knitting. After about 8 repeats, I sat back and evaluated. I decided that it looked a little too floppy, and was causing too much distortion in the edge of the blanket. So I ripped out, went down a couple of needle sizes, and tried again. Finished the same 8 repeats, re-examined, and decided I was happy and knit all the way on around the edge.

For whatever reason, that whole experience made me feel just really, really good about myself, and VERY MUCH like an actual, real live knitter. Thinking for myself, making decisions without anyone’s guidance . . . I don’t know. It was just tremendously empowering.

And I’m completely, utterly thrilled with the end result:

Now, it’s nothing special in terms of yarn (Plymouth Dreambaby DK, because it was important that it be machine washable and dryable!), but it was one of my first projects on my Denise needles and I just have to say I am sooooo glad I had them for this project! They made it much easier to expand as the blanket kept growing. I’ve already thrown it through the washer and dryer and it came through fabulously.

So now I just need to get it in the mail to the baby before he outgrows it! (There’s a lot of other stuff I need to get in the mail, too. Life keeps getting in the way. By the way, I’m deliberately not talking about why it’s been a million years since I’ve posted anything — it’s been hell to live, and I don’t want to rehash it in writing. So I’m just planning to move upward and onward from here.)

So now I’ve cast on for Mom’s second sock (twice now; here’s hoping it doesn’t get up to the seven tries it took me to get the first one going for real) and am hoping to have it finisehd soon. After that, I have lots of options — and I’m trying not to think about them yet!