My First Ten-Stitch Twist Blanket

I have finished my first circular blanket! What a journey! It was one of those projects that I really liked working on, then wished it was finished already and once it was finished and I was taking photographs of it I felt sad that it was over. Who knew that knitting can turn you into such an emotional mish-mash?

Teeny (Bashful Bunny by Jellycat) is enjoying a few moments of rest on this new blanket before it gets given away.

The original pattern is Ten Stitch Twist by Frankie Brown which is available as a free download on Ravelry. The yarn used is Sirdar Hayfield Spirit DK in a shade called Sundown. It was very pleasant to work with. I used 3mm needles because I like the knitting to be quite tight but in retrospect I would use slightly thicker needles (maybe 4mm) as they would not affect the tightness that much but would help the blanket be finished a bit faster. I used it to cover my legs whilst I was working on it and it is toasty warm.

I have taken this blanket on holiday and have knitted at my parents' house and spent many happy moments with it whilst sipping coffee and watching TV. However, I kept getting distracted and missing the point where I have to knit and turn an incomplete row. I only figured out that I can use stitch markers where I need to do this when the blanket was almost finished. Silly me!

The only slight problem I had was with the centre of the twist - I made it too large and so as I was knitting around it the whole centre bulged out and looked more like a hat rather than a flat blanket. I came to terms with this but in the end once I have soaked and stretched the blanket and let it dry the centre was almost as flat as the rest of it.