Italian has a particularly lovely euphemism for pregnancy: the time of sweet waiting. And what better way to fill a bit of a wait than with a heartfelt knit?

Our Sweet Waiting is a unisex stroller blanket that documents the days of waiting for a new loved one. The knit is perfectly suitable for a beginner, using only knits and purls in a soothing combination that promotes calm reflection and creates gently textured diamonds in a fully reversible fabric. The magic is in the yarn. Each row is worked in a color that reflects the temperature of one day during the time of sweet waiting. The end result is a cheery, snuggly rainbow of the 40 weeks spent anticipating baby’s arrival.

Sweet Waiting is a companion knit to Weather Vane, a Daily Temperature Knit designed to document a year.

Yarn: Sweet Waiting is designed to be worked in a rainbow eight stunning shades of Why Knot Fibers’ Steady, a lovely, soft superwash yarn in 100% Merino. It easily could be adapted to more or fewer colors, a monochromatic color scheme, or other color arrangement. As written, Sweet Waiting calls for one skein each of eight colors: Crocus, Blue Jean Baby, Peacock, Shire, Wasabi, Winter Wheat, Sweet Potato, and Inara.

Instructions: The pattern includes both charted and fully written-out instructions. It additionally includes a calendar of daily temperatures to simplify the process of knitting your Sweet Waiting; just work the color designated on each of the days leading up to baby’s due date for a beautiful result. For an even more personalized blanket, the pattern also includes tips on how to find and organize weather data from any location and year to help you craft the perfect representation of a sweet wait.

Skills Needed: Knitting, purling, and weaving in ends.

Temperature Choices: Sweet Waiting includes a color-coded chart to simplify the process of knitting the blanket; just work the color designated on each of the days leading up to baby’s due date for a beautiful result. The temperature bands selected for each color in the chart were created specifically to result in roughly even proportions of each color throughout the year and to make sure the pattern required only one skein of each color, regardless of which specific days (summer, winter, etc.) you worked. If you’re seeking an even more personalized blanket, the pattern also includes tips on how to find and organize weather data from any location and year to help you craft the perfect representation of a sweet wait.

Finishing: Sweet Waiting is designed to be finished with plain seed-stitch edges, but it also includes tips on how to finish the blanket with tassels instead, with the caveat that tassels need more yardage and may require additional skeins to complete.

Yardage Notes: Worked to gauge using the included color chart, Sweet Waiting can be completed with only 1 skein of each of the 8 colors (that is, no temperature band requires more than 218 yards), and a total of approximately 1100 yards. If you are working tassels, changing the color distribution, or creating your own color distribution, you may require significantly more yardage of one or more colors. Our test knits averaged just under 5 yards of yarn per row; you could use that number to roughly estimate the yardage you’ll require of each color, conduct your own swatching for more accurate results, or gather extra skeins as insurance.