fair isle frenzy

Remember the many hearts baby blanket I posted about during the Knitting and Crochet Blogging Week? It's become my go-to project during these last few days of anxious waiting for the arrival of baby. It doesn't take much concentration now that I've pretty much memorized the chart, each square is small (and thus super portable), doesn't fill my lap with warm knitting (what lap I have left, ha!), and is easy to pick up after putting down (which suits my easily distracted brain right now). My husband would say that the project is aptly named, as many hearts are starting to pile up around the house!

I've made a few changes since my original post about the project. First, I've settled on my color choices. I've narrowed my focus to the following colorways of Knit Picks Swish Worsted: Bordeaux (deep purple), Gulfstream (blue), Parrot (lime green), Carrot (orange), and Lotus (hot pink).

I've also learned an important lesson when it comes to stranded knitting: it helps to weave in (or tack down) your longer floats. Let me elaborate. Notice the difference between these two blanket squares below? Notice how in the top square, the heart lays nice and flat, whereas in the bottom square it pulls in on the sides?



That, my friends, is the difference between tacking down your longer floats on the back. When I say "tacking down" I mean picking up your non-working yarn and laying it on top of your working yarn so that on the next stitch, your working yarn catches the non-working yarn and "tacks it down." Here is a great blog post that discusses the process with better detail. Basically, it forces you to have longer, much more even floats---thus allowing your colorwork to lay flat! It makes such a difference that each blanket square appears at least two inches wider. In fact, I'm guessing that my initial estimates of the number of squares needed to finish this project will end up being off quite a bit due to this difference!