Dom's Blanket II

In the winter of 2008, I made the Rusted Shut blanket for my friend Dom. Somewhat to my surprise, he loved it and promptly requested more blankets. For two years, nothing happened. I tinkered with ideas and patterns for a while, but I didn't set about seriously designing a second pattern until the winter of 2010. The catalyst was, somewhat predictably, a loss of temper on my part (just like with the first blanket). I was telling the story to a friend and abruptly got mad about it all over again. "That does it, I'm gonna buy yarn for Dom tomorrow," I said, and true to my word, I did just that. Rather as with the first blanket, my timing was spectacularly bizarre. I had just purchased the yarn when I came home and logged on to tell Dom, only to discover him distraught over a fight with a friend. I talked to Dom and made him feel better, and then I decided to make the blanket a little larger than I had previously planned, plus I asked him exactly what he wanted. I suggested something to do with the logo for his band the Future Blondes, and we discussed it and decided on a checkerboard pattern like the Rusted Shut blanket, only featuring the Future Blondes zero instead of a plus sign.

I tinkered with the math, calculated a bit to adjust the size, and began work. I had to stop for a week or so while working on Hank Schwemmer's hat, then my carpal tunnel syndrome returned, then I started work on a cardigan, and then I sprained my wrist at work and couldn't knit. A mere six months later than planned, I finally completed the blanket.

As with the Rusted Shut blanket, the Future Blondes blanket was a relatively quick knit, since it was (like its predecessor) worked with two strands of Lion Brand Homespun held together throughout on size 19 needles. Also, as promised, I made it larger than the first, so it was 145 stitches across as opposed to 117, and it was also proportionately longer. The end result was almost bedspread sized. Thanks to the large stitches and needles, though, the larger size didn't necessitate much extra work. It was not, color- or pattern-wise, as ambitious or aesthetically pleasing as I personally would have preferred. Nevertheless, Dom liked it, which was the important part.