Stash Buster Striped Blankets

I got a copy of Sally Melville's Styles, and thought I would take her advice about sorting by colour... 14 large buckets later (and I don't think we found all the bags of wool around), I made the decision to create a pattern for something that would use a LOT of stash up, quickly. Really quickly. I mean--really! So, using some of the ideas from Styles, mostly about picking 3 adjacent colours on the colour wheel, and the handy knitting machine, I came up with a basic knitted blanket.

Knitted Blanket
On the knitting machine, I use a setting of 10 (gauge roughly 4 sts to the inch), cast on 60 sts, and knit 400 rows. Change colours every 10 rows; this can be done as blocks of colour with 4 dark and 4 light strips in each block. Knit 6 strips, sew them or slip stitch crochet them together. Block. Decide that you need an edging. Start drinking Reisling (or Rickard's red, or other beveredge) while you think about what edging you should use...garter stitch, not more than 10 sts wide, preferably something that will be easy to change colours on a regular basis.


The first blanket is red, purple and blue. I sewed it together with mattress stitch. By strip 3, I was definitely thinging that there must be a better (faster, easier) way to do this--maybe slip stitch crochet. I didn't know how to knit in the ends, so it will take approximately 17 years to sew in all the ends. They stick between your toes in your sleep, and drive me bananas. I may just decide to line it with fleece, so that Nicole doesn't whine for years.

Blanket 2 for daugher two, Patricia, was made with blues and greens and purples. I figured out how to knit in the ends as you go--much better, although some of the backs slipped to the front, and created a speckled edge along one side. This one has a crochet edging, which I don't think is the best choice, but I love the colours, and I love the pattern. .

Blanket 3 is all wool, and only 4 strips wide. I changed the pattern so that there are blocks of colour: 4 dark and 4 light strips of each 'colour way' to 400 rows (5 blocks of colour). Slip stitch crochet together, and this one will have a garter stitch edging. 3 strips sewn together so far; this one only has 4 strips, as it is for the sofa.

The plan is:
pinks, purples, whites (one for each of the twins, and one for my goddaughter)
green, blue, grey, and purples (2 youngest nephews)
red, purple, blues (oldest nephew, and godson)
whites, greys, yellows and greens (husband, our bed)
amish (read this as as loud as possible, rainbow colours (one sister)
romantic colours (pinks, reds and blues) (Mother, youngest sister)