By now it was obvious that I was not going to give up knitting. The Clapotis finis, I needed something new to do. And the birth of my lovely little baby nephew was just the ticket. Babies always need something to wear, and baby clothes are small and cute and fast to knit, right?

However, I was unsure about the size, especially as my nephew seemed to grow every time I saw him. So I decided to go for a blanket instead. I wanted it to be off-white, soft and shimmery, yet machine-washable and easy to care for. I chose this free pattern with slight modifications:

Project: Bedtime Story
Yarn: Sirdar Just Bamboo, 111 Manilla, just under 400 g; decorations: Sirdar Just Bamboo, 113 Blue Grass, about 25 g
Needles: Addi bamboo 5 mm + tapestry needle

I modified the pattern slightly and left out quite a few squares. The original was 48 squares, but with this yarn that wouldn’t have been a baby blanket anymore. I made mine 20 squares, and the size is just right. I also placed the animals differently and didn’t make them face the centre.

What else can I say about this project? I’m glad it’s done and I get to do something different. Although it was heart-warming to knit for someone I love, the pattern was so monotonous that not only was it boring to knit, but I also started making mistakes. I simply lost concentration. Plus the tape yarn was a bitch to embroider. It kept twisting this way and that the whole time and I had to smooth each stitch by hand to make them look decent. The colours are nice, though, and the yarn has a lovely, elegant sheen to it.

I didn’t quite know how to calculate the amount of yarn needed, and when I was about halfway through, I had to go and buy some more yarn. By this time I had already discovered knitting blogs and seen how much yarn people tend to accumulate and made a holy decision to only buy yarn for the project at hand - no stash!

But, as I had gathered the extra yarn in my arms, I happened to glance at the Colinette shelf and realised that JitterBug in the Jay colourway would be perfect for my next project, the Pomatomus socks. There was only one hank left, and they said they only get them randomly. So without further ado I grabbed it, and that was the end of my no-stash vow. And of course I had to get a new set of Addi bamboo dpns as well, for the socks.

As I was walking home, happily swaying my shopping bag with the new yarns & needles, I realised that I’d spent over 200 euros in my LYS in just a couple of weeks.

So by now it was official. There was no going back - I was an addict.