Here are the mods I did:

Cast on 137, which gives 9 leaf vines below and above the castle motif, and 2 more to either side of it. Each repeat of the vine motif is [p2, leaf and vine from pattern chart, p3] plus one purl at the beginning to balance the whole thing, and 6 sts of garter border (3 on each side).

My friends’ nursery theme was “enchanted forest”, so I wanted it to look like there are trees/vines/leaves all around the castle. This doesn’t match up perfectly with the castle inset, though, so on the first row of the moat I adjusted by one stitch on either side of the drawbridge, and then on the first row of vines above the castle I adjusted those two stitches back the way they were. I, erm, didn’t write down which was the increase and which was the decrease, but it’s a simple enough change to figure out when you get there and count stitches.

Tips for colorwork:
I decided everything inside the leaf or stem should be the castle background, which means this color travels as the pattern does. Switch colors on the WS row BEFORE the row with the next vine cable cross, so that when you perform the cable cross the colors look right. Also switch colors the row before the cable crosses that increase the width of the castle.

Also, where possible, the public side knitting after a color change should be knits, even if the stitches are normally purls. This wasn’t possible switching between my light and dark green, so you can see how the purls make a stripy line where the colors change. You can also see the stripy effect at the top of the moat, because I hadn’t figured out yet that I should try to do something about it. (I kind of feel like I should make another of these blankets now that I’ve learned what I’m doing!) On the top of the castle crenellations, you can definitely change the purls to knits and not have the castle color and the background color cross each other. I also worked the first row of leaves after the castle as a knit row, to keep the green and gold from striping.

The crenellations are the only part of the blanket to have floats - everything else is intarsia.

In general:
After each cable cross row and each row of increasing in the base of the new leaf, before you work the WS row look at what you’ve done and make sure you got all the cables and leaves right. I can’t tell you how often I had to tink two rows because I messed up one motif.

I worked 6 leaves in light green and 6 leaves in dark green above and below the castle panel. I guess this pattern is prone to being very long and thin, even if you change the pattern! Friends with babies assured me that rectangles are good for cribs, strollers, and car seats, but I think it might have been more visually pleasing if I’d done just four leaves in each color (8 total) above and below the 9 leaf castle panel.

I thought I’d totally screwed up my chart when I went to change from the moat and drawbridge to the actual castle. The edges of the vines are not easy to keep track of the way I did them, and the moat bisects one set of vines. Take a deep breath and slip stitches along the row, placing markers for each color. Threaten to kill anyone who disturbs you. It will all work out fine if you just count correctly.

I used yarns I’d bought for other purposes (this was actually the third pattern I tried for making a baby blanket). The yardage per weight of Stroll Glimmer is exactly twice that of Swish DK, so the greens were held double and the other colors single. By attaching colors from each end of the non-green skeins (where needed) I didn’t have to cut the yarns unnecessarily or wind bobbins, but I did have to detangle every other row.

On advice from a friend, I split the ends into individual plies (for the Swish) or two plies (for the Stroll) and wove them in separately. I finished the blanket in the washer and dryer (cold/low) and the couple of ends that popped out just looked like fuzz or pilling, since they were so small.

I’m happy to answer questions if I can, but I won’t be sharing my charts since this is a paid pattern authored by someone who isn’t me. :P

List of photos:
1 & 2 Castle after finishing
3 Blanket after finishing
4 Blanket before washer/dryer
5 & 6 Wrong side blanket & castle before washer/dryer
7 Detail of moat, drawbridge, and door
8 Detail of vine and castle cable color changes
9 Color stripe of purl row between greens
10 Knit stitches above crenellations to prevent color stripe