I am knitting an enormous wool blanket. It is almost halfway finished.

I have no cold tolerance. I’m the one wearing a giant puffy coat when everyone else is wearing a light jacket. When I’m riding my bicycle in the cold, I’m completely covered with my coat and knitwear, except for my glasses peeking out between the cowl over my nose and my hat. So when I moved to the Pacific Northwest from southern California, I had a little trouble adjusting to winters here.

I wanted to make a really warm wool blanket to keep on my bed in the winter. I was inspired by Jared Flood’s version of Elizabeth Zimmermann’s Knitted Garter Stitch Blanket in Sheepsdown, originally published in The Opinionated Knitter.

My version is going to fit my queen size bed, so I cast on more stitches than what was used in the original pattern. I’m also knitting with a triple strand of Wool of the Andes Hyacinth and size 15 needles. I bought 63 balls of Wool of the Andes to make this blanket. It’s a ton of yarn, but it will lower my heating bill and also a blanket at this gauge is actually pretty fast to knit. Also, Hyacinth is my favorite color. It’s a cross between royal purple and indigo blue (and similar to Majestic Palette), and it is much brighter than what you see in the photograph.

This blanket is knit in 4 pieces that interlock like a puzzle when you’re done. I’m going to seam this blanket with single crochet and add an i cord border around the edges. I’m knitting my blanket with straight needles, because each piece is narrow. You don’t have to knit across the width of your bed for each row, and this makes the project lighter and more portable. It’s also a very easy pattern. Perfect for knitting on rainy or icy evenings in the wintertime.

I’m also working on a lot of holiday gifts right now, but those have to be secret because the recipients read the Knit Picks blog! <