I was inspired by this blanket here, but with stockinette instead of garter plus my prior creation here
- making it stockinette for the middle, then the border from Mr. Blanket for the outside. Adding a seed stitch border to harmonize the colours, plus it turned out rather narrow and I wanted a little more width.
Cast on 110 stitches, then re-cast on with 100. Should have kept the 110, as I am using a smaller needle. I would have preferred a width of 30 inches, instead of the 28.5 I got. Adding the green seed stitch border helped.
Gauge unblocked is 19 stitches and 28 rows to 4 inches. Knitting a round of green in seed stitch, so picking up 2 stitches for 3 rows along the sides and using a 3.75 mm needle, as seed stitch is wider than stockinette.
- back up to 4.0 mm needle for the border. I knit a couple of repeats before reading my notes on my last blanket using this border. I needed to rip back and start spreading out the border.
IMPORTANT NOTES ABOUT THE BORDER: Error on row 7 of the edging chart - should be 4 knit stitches on each side, not 3 and 4.
Also, the gauge I got was 19 stitches and 28 rows to 4 inches in stockinette, on 4.0 mm needles. That means that if I join every WS row of the border to the top and bottom of the blanket, that I am joining 36 rows for every 18-stitch section of the top and bottom, whereas the gauge should have me joining 18 border rows for every 12 stitches of the body.
My solution: For every 18 row pattern repeat, instead of 9 stitches, I attach to 12, so that gives me the correct ratio of rows to stitches (18 body stitches and 24 border rows). On rows 4, 10 and 16 (RS rows), I simply attach another body stitch (k2tog TBL). that means I have 3 rows attached to the body in a row - WS, RS, WS, then back to attaching only on the WS until the next RS attachment. WORKS GREAT!
Turtle: Original thought was either of the 2 Tiny Turtle patterns, or Sheldon, which has a detachable shell and other “costumes” available to knit.
https://www.ravelry.com/projects/KnittingRewound/tiny-turtle.
Rejected Sheldon (too big) or Tiny Turtle (too high and small)
Look at: https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/sea-turtle-stack or https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/little-sea-creat... or happy sea turtle or tuck (but without the bottom so no tucking.
Chose Sea Turtle Stack - make not as high a shell - take out some rows at the outside.
Yarn Usage:
Less than 1 skein gray and green, even with the turtle.
Used more than 2 blue. More than 1 for the border.