Box Stitch Blanket - Gambling With a Side of Fixes

I stumbled across this pattern the other day and wanted to give it a try.  This pattern has a picture with it and the blanket looked so cozy and cuddly.  I was a bit chilly that day and thought it would be nice to have a cozy, cuddly blanket to snuggle up with.  So I decided to give the pattern a try.

The pattern is written for a preemie baby blanket.  Well, I am not "preemie" sized so I needed to increase this blanket considerably.  I chose to strive for a lap blanket. Something about 45 inches by 60 inches would be good.

The pattern also calls for DK weight yarn doubled.  This means that you knit with two strands together. The yarn they actually used was a baby weight or sport weight.   I had some medium weight but not enough to double so I decided not to double it. I also chose a size smaller needle because I wasn't doubling.  The pattern calls for a size 10 knitting needle.  I went with a size 9.

Currently, I have not measured the blanket yet.  I have about 22 rows on it.  I really should have started on circular needles but I didn't have any the same size.  So I went with straight needles.  I casted on as many stitches as I could.  I have 160 stitches.

I also decided NOT to add the border on the blanket that they called for in this preemie blanket.  I decided I wanted to crochet a border around it later.

I had a bunch of Loops and Threads Impeccable yarn laying around in various colors so I chose to use that for my blanket.

That is it so far.  Once I get a bit further I will change colors and make stripes of color for the blanket.  My thought is that if it is not quite as wide as I would like it then I will add a thicker border on it to make it wider.

The moral of this story?  If you see a pattern that you like the looks of but it doesn't quite fit your needs, make it fit!  You can use the basic pattern or stitch and make it work for you.  Use the gauge and it will help you figure out how many extra stitches you need to make it the length or width you need.  Also use the pattern to help you.  In this case the pattern repeats every 4 stitches.  Knit 2, Purl 2, then you repeat.  So you need 4 stitches to complete the pattern.  Therefore, I multiplied by 4.

If you choose to add a border to it while you are knitting then add the border stitches to the total multiples of your pattern stitch.  For example if you want a border of 5 stitches on each side then add 5+5=10. So your total would be 10 + the number of multiples of 4 you want.  Easy???

So for my blanket with 160 stitches I expect the blanket to be a bit over 42 inches wide.  The gauge for this pattern is 15 stitches = 4 inches.  I divide my 160 by 15 then multiply by 4.  Now I know that my needles will make the gauge a bit smaller and if I were a precise knitter I would have knitted up a swatch to create my own gauge to figure out exactly how many stitches I would need for a 45 inch wide blanket.  But I am more of a gambling with a side of fixes kind of girl, so I gambled with the number of stitches and used their gauge and will opt for a crochet border to make it a bit wider when I am done.