FO: Finger Knit Cushy Blanket

This project idea was hatched back in June when I came across 5 skeins of this enormous yarn in a thrift store. I'm not usually one for this huge yarn trend, but my mom had mentioned how she thought the chunky knit blankets were really cool and it lead to a whole discussion about how expensive the yarn is to make those and the idea seemed to dwindle away. So when I found a blanket worth of yarn for $5, I snapped it up and knew I wanted to make my parents this blanket sometime. 

The yarn is called Yarn Bee Eternal Bliss and is originally from Hobby Lobby for $7.99 per skein. This yarn is the Light Gray colorway, which is literally the perfect color for my parent's back room of their house, which is where they would watch tv with a blanket. This yarn is seriously 1 inch in diameter. So thick. I knew i couldn't do anything with needles for this yarn, so I looked into finger knitting. I came across this video on YouTube, which laid out the whole process and made this project so easy.

According to the video, I had the perfect amount of yarn for a 3 x 4 foot blanket, so I followed her directions and chain stitched 28 stitches across (which was 3 feet). I knit up the whole blanket one night on a zoom call for about 2 hours and then excitedly went in my room to lay it out and see how it looked ... only to discover that I had dropped 3 stitches on the edge throughout the project, one of which was in the first quarter of the blanket. Ugh. I had to unwind all the way back and set it aside. This worked out for the best though because now I knew what I was doing and I could involve my kids in making it again. They sat on each side of me and would pull up the loops on their side of the blanket while I worked on the center as we went. Now they can say they made this blanket, which is always a big deal for a 5 year old at Christmas. Also because I had already knotted the yarn together when I made the blanket the first time, I had an absolutely gigantic ball of yarn I was working from - seriously it was bigger than a basket ball. The girls thought it was pretty awesome.

Here is the purl side of the blanket. You can see me joins if you look close, but they really aren't that bad considering how big this yarn is. I secured each join with a needle and thread as well as the start and end knots just to make sure it holds up to washing. Our stitching could certainly be a bit tighter, which might have made it look a bit more even, but for never having done finger knitting before and also considering I was letting 5 year olds help me, I think it turned out pretty great.

So now my parents have their chunky knit blanket. It's so thick and cushy that it works well as a mat for babies in case they plop their heads down too quickly, and the openness of the stitches makes this not a super heavy blanket. It's just enough to snuggle up in without making you too hot, so it should be great for this Florida family. My kids have been using it everytime they go over to my parents house, so I know I have their seal of approval. I'm happy with how this turned out and would definitely try out finger knitting again if I come across this kind of yarn again.

Summary:

Yarn: 5 skeins of Yarn Bee Eternal Bliss in Light Gray - $5.35

Pattern: How To Finger A Knit Blanket by Play Hooky With Me - Free

Time: 4 hours