I leave for Denver and the Mile High Lace Knitting Conference in less than 36 hours.  I’ll be taking Overture to Estonian Lace with Nancy Bush, and An Overview of Orenburg-style Knitted Lace with Galina Khmeleva.

While in Denver, I’ll get to see a friend from college who is due any day now with her first baby.  Mom and Dad decided not to find out the sex of the baby, so I’m forced into gender neutral baby gift options.  Not being much of one for pastels, I decided on red as my color of choice for a baby blanket.  Depite my mom trying to talk me out of red as the color for a baby item, I stuck to my initial feelings on the color selection.  I’m glad that I did.  I love the way the blanket is looking.  It’s cheerful, fun, and not too babyish.  I’m hoping that it turns into the blanket that the toddler drags with them everywhere.  I can’t image a higher form of praise for my knit blanket.

For the design, I am using the reversible cable from the Cardigan for Arwen in the Winter 2006 Interweave Knits as the border with a stockinette center.  The yarn that I’m using is Cascade Bollicine Holiday from Webs, a nice 70% superwash merino wool and 30% acrylic blend.  The swatch was nice and soft after a trip through the washer and dryer.  The yarn suggests not machine drying the yarn, but I think it should be ok.  The only problem with the project is that the blanket only measures 30 inches by 14 inches right now.  There’s no way I’ll finish this before we leave, and I’m worried that I won’t finish before I see the mom-to-be.