From the first moments after hearing of Siena’s diagnosis last fall, I knew that I wanted to knit a blanket for her. I just knew that I needed to do it. Selecting a pattern, colors, yarn…. it was all very therapeutic. What I didn’t know at the time was how much Siena’s blanket would become a big part of her legacy and that I would make two more Siena blankets before her first year was done.
After keeping the blanket with us at the hospital, when it was time to choose burial *things* for Siena (read more), we decided to have her buried with her Siena blanket.
On the day we buried Siena, her godparents asked Tim and I to be godparents of their new baby (read more). I again immediately decided to do another blanket for Theo. If you saw me knitting at the Minnesota Catholic Home Educators conference in 2015, that’s what I was working on!
And again when I found out I was pregnant with Tomas, I knew that I would need to knit my third Siena blanket. I actually pushed it a little close for Tomas, only finishing a week before he was born. I had it in our hospital bag and when Tomas was transferred (read more), so I sent it along with Tim to Mayo. The first time each of us held him, it was with his Siena blanket close by! In fact, it stayed close throughout his entire hospital stay.
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I don’t know if I will knit another Siena blanket. By the time I finished the third one, I started to feel like this particular pattern was one that needed a reason to be knit. I’m just not sure what those reasons are. I think I will just know, the way I knew I needed to knit the first one.
I have never *written* a pattern before, but I adapted this one and made it my own (I didn’t end up using the pattern that Siena’s blanket is actually linked too on my Ravelry if you are friends with me over there) so I am going to share it here in case you one day you realize there is a special baby in your life that needs a Siena blanket too. If you do decide to make one, be sure to let me know!
Yarn
All three blankets were made with Berroco Comfort Solids yarn. It is soft and washable and just really cozy! To me the specific yarn used is as much a part of the blanket as the pattern, but that is up to you. Any yarn would technically work. Siena’s original blanket was done in double knit (using two strands) of worsted weight, Theo’s blanket was done in single knit (one strand) of worsted weight, and Tomas’ was single knit with chunky weight. All three used approximately 4 skeins.
Needles & Gauge
This is to calculate on your own- you could use any size needles and yarn to suit your fancy. I knit all three on size 9 and calculated my stripe width based on yarn weight. I planned my stripe pattern in advance (getting more complicated with each blanket) and figured out what percentage of yarn that would be and went from there, sometimes using my scale to weigh the remaining ball to figure out stripe width.
For example: Siena’s pattern was purple, grey, pink, white, white, pink, grey, purple so I divided my colored yarn into 50 gram balls- half of a skein- and then went as far as I could for the stripe and made all the rest the same which worked out to 7 ridges for the narrow stripes and I knit the white to the end which made for 18 ridges there. You could be as free form or technical as you wanted to with this step!
Pattern
Cast on stitches in a multiple of 14 plus 2 using your preferred method. (Siena’s blanket started with 100 stitches, the others with 128)
K= Knit
K2 tog = Knit 2 stitches together (decrease)
KfKb = Knit into the front and back of the stitch (increase)
The ridges are worked in two alternating increase and decrease rows to desired stripe pattern.
Right Side (decreasing row): K 1, K 2 together, {K 10, K 2 tog twice} repeat bracketed section until 13 stitches remain, K 10, K 2 tog, K 1
Wrong Side (increasing row): K 6, {KfKb twice, K 10} repeat bracketed section until 8 stitches remain, KfKb x2, K 6
Bind off on right side, following inc/dec pattern.
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