Enjoying The Morning

I'm spending the morning in enjoying the outdoor shade and knitting. (We live in Arizona and it is quite warm here). Our dog, Zeke, inspired me to change my morning off routine when he looked so happy and content laying in the grass.

I am currently working on yet another baby blanket for a friend who is due in about month. Everyone seems to be pregnant these days but me! I know my time will come but after two miscarriages I can't wait to have my own baby in my arms and to be knitting or sewing something for my children.

Back to the blanket... I wanted to do something pretty and feminine as she is having a girl. I found this beautiful trim online and thought that would be great for a blanket.

I decided to only do the trim on the sides and just knit the trim and blanket as one piece. In order to do this one of the trim sides is knitted backwards.  The first side when you start on the end follows the pattern but once you get to the opposite end you're starting on the backside of the trim. I thought everything would be fine because row 1-5 is the same backwards and forwards but I've run into some trouble with row 6!  Row 6 you slip the first stitch, bind off 3 and knit 3. I assumed if I knit 3, slip 1, bind off 3 it would work the same. No! Then I thought if I knit 3 and bind of 4 that would work.  No again! So I consulted with mother-in-law who is a far better knitter then I am and has knit much longer then I have. She came up with knit 3, bind off 2, knit 2 together.  I thought that sounded like a great idea but no such luck!

This has been driving me crazy. I've been racking my brain over what I can do on the other side for row 6 to get both sides to look the same! My poor husband has had to listen to my mumblings about this for a week now! Finally last night I think I came up with it! On row 6 after knitting 3, transfer the remaining stitches to the other needle, slip and bind of as usual and then transfer them back to the other needle again!

It sounds time consuming and a pain but I'm happy I have finally found a solution! In the future I think it would be easier to knit the trim separately and attach it to the finished blanket!