The great thing about a diagonal blanket it that there is no worry that the cast on and the cast off edges will have the same stretch. Also, the stockinette stitch packs in more tightly and thicker that stockinette, giving the blanket excellent loft. The down side is that it take FOREVER to knit the desired length!
I knit this double. After each separate blanket was done, I stitched them together, washed in wool wash, then blocked dry.
I used circular needles. Note: It was either three or four skeins that I used.
The Ella Rae Cozy Soft yarn was heavier than the Bambini. Even though this gave them different gauges, I made sure the length of the square matched up. I had to knit more rows of the white.
I did the stitching using blue because it looked better to use the heavier yarn. I did a back stitch in the yarn over holes from the white side. The holes did not line up, but traveling on the blue side disguised the different spacings.