Not My Knits: Not Your Average Baby Blanket

What's your commute to work like? When I was working (outside the house) I had a very long commute, which was a con, but the pros were that some of the ride was in a beautiful, semi-rural setting, and I got to listen to relaxing or fun music in the car. It was an excellent way to center myself before beginning the day and decompress after work was over. There were times when I definitely felt my blood pressure lower during these rides (as long as the weather was good, obviously).

Two of my pals from college J. and R. live near and worked in New York City for a long time. Their commutes can be summed up in one word: HELLACIOUS. That's my word not theirs. When J. described her daily morning commute to me one day I felt my own blood pressure going up and I didn't even have to go through it myself. I'm talking about waiting in the cold for an over packed train, fighting and clawing for a space to call your own, more fighting and clawing on the subway, more freaking walking, maybe more pushing into an elevator...etc, etc. Ugh. I totally would not be able to deal. R. had a similar awful commute but even had a ferry involved! No thank you; I am too claustrophobic and grumpy in the morning to be able to handle something like that.

Fortunately for them, they didn't seem to mind the commute very much. Maybe they had just gotten used to it. J. did tell me though that she kind of liked the excitement--how it got your adrenaline going. That's a good way of looking at it.

Knowing all this, I stare at the blanket R. made for Little C.'s baby shower in utter amazement. This blanket (which she assures me is "easy") was made during her commute. I would be such a mess from all the travel stress that I would have to breath into a bag, and yet this girl whips out her knitting and gets to it. I am so not a city girl as it turns out.

This is an interesting diagonal design in garter stitch. I also like how R. chose unusual colors for a baby blanket (they actually match my family room). Hooray for out of the box thinking! I searched Google and came up with
this site for a pattern.





I'm getting ready to declare August "Blanket Month" around here. I'm still not sick of them yet. I'm sure I will be though, once it starts getting chilly and one actually needs to use a blanket.