About a year ago, I finished knitting a blanket that was a gift for someone else and realized I missed its pieces piled up in my lap. I decided it was time to knit a blanket for myself :o). Wanting something cheerful for the cold, dark months, I chose this free pattern at Lion Brand…. and got started.

This blanket is knitted in three parts: the reds and oranges in one big triangular corner; the yellows and greens in a stripe across the center; and the blues and purples in another triangular corner.

The pieces are worked in intarsia colorwork. This means that most of the time, I was actively knitting with more than one color, which I admit can become a bit of a tangled headache. Below, I’m knitting the center stripe in three different greens and one yellow, and I have all four colors attached to my needle at the same time.

Below, I’ve knitted the red/orange triangle and the yellow/green center strip, and am just starting the  purple/blue triangle. All five of those purplish balls of yarn are attached to my needle as I work. Constant tangles! But pretty colors.

I had a bit of a hiccup at this point in the process, because after working for MONTHS, I discovered that I’d knitted my purple/blue corner piece much, more more tightly than my red/orange corner piece — which meant it was far too small to fit with the other blanket pieces. Why did I do that? Because I was in the middle of a really difficult revision with a stressful deadline. When I’m relaxed, I knit loosely. When I’m stressed, I knit tightly. SIGH. I had to take it all out and start again. I was so depressed about this that I put the whole project aside for the entire summer!

 I attached them together, then, on the advice of several sages, chose yellow as the border color. All done!