This project has been in my queue for a very long time. Recently I ran across Sugar n’ Cream yarn on sale, so stocked up on a rainbow of colors and decided to undertake the knitting.

It was a fun, but tedious knit. Knitting with this bulky, cotton yarn is awful!! Especially in a tuck pattern. It took me quite a while to discover some techniques to keep things running relatively smoothly, and even at that it took way more effort than most other machine knitting.

The first thing I discovered is that the stitches next to the tucked stitches really want to come out of the needles by the time you’ve knitted a couple of tuck rows. I wanted to knit 6 rows in each color, with 2 tucked rows of contrast color between. But I found that 4 rows of each color was as much as the machine would agreeably accommodate.

Before knitting each contrast row, I pulled all needles out to E position. After every 2 rows of contrast I re-hung the cast on comb, full length, making certain that it caught every single stitch. If you’ve ever tried to put a cast on comb into your knitting after you’ve already got fabric hanging from the machine, you probably know that’s no easy task. As soon as I got one end hanging and moved along to the middle or the other end, the first end would pop out of the stitches. It took a while to come up with a technique to get the whole comb to stay in the stitches, and then I hung 6 large ribber weights along the length of the comb. Then I pulled down on the comb all along the bed, one section at a time, as I knitted across, to put maximum weight on the stitches as they were being knitted. Whew! It was pretty exhausting.

I was eventually very pleased with the result, in spite of a few glaring errors. (Can you see them?)

I then knitted a fold-over trim which I sewed on by hand. (I learned this technique from Diana Sullivan’s video.) I will do that a bit differently next time. After getting one full side attached, I would count how many segments I used, and allot the same number of segments for the other side, baste it and then sew it.

After sewing in ends I machine washed and dried the blanket. It pilled a bit, but I wanted it to be pre-washed before sending it off. I mailed it off to my niece, who has a new baby. Sadly, the package never reached her. The mail carrier claims it was delivered, but they never got it. I can only hope that some other lucky baby is enjoying it somewhere, and I will make another one for my niece.