Oceana

Oceana (so named for the colorway, and also because this thing is bigger and wider than the deep blue sea) was SO much fun to make... and quick!

Being a very improvizatory knitter, I came up with this basic formula for making big ol’ blankets quickly and easily, without a whole lot of guess work. Further more, it easily allows you to use up bits and odd pieces of yarn sitting around that don’t have homes.

I knit this on the bias, increasing (kfb) at the beginning and end of each RS row, while maintaining a 5 st garter border on the WS, and otherwise St st. Quite simple, really.

Begin by CO 1 st. (One is the loneliest number…) Do this weird little triple increase by knitting into the front, back, AND THE FRONT AGAIN before finishing the st (kfbf). That was your RS. Now, knit across. 3 st. That was your WS. Like I mentioned above, kfb at first and last st (RS), then knit across back of WS until you have enough sts to create a 5 st garter border on either side. Heck, the border can be as big or little as you want, and you may not even want to have a damn border at all. It’s all up to you!

When you get the piece as wide as you want (or as wide as will fit on the needles), you can do one of two things:

1) For a square blanket, begin decreasing (k2tog) instead of increasing (kfb). Work the WS the same. Easy-peasy.

2) For a rectangular blanket, increase (kfb) at beginning of the RS row, but instead of increasing at the END of the row, decreas (k2tog). This will cause the work to slant. As Martha Stewart would say, “it’s a good thing.” When you’ve gotten it as long as you want, start decreasing (k2tog) both times, not just at the end of the RS row. Work the WS the same. Also easy-peasy.

• Remember, since you’re working this on the bias, what you have on your needles isn’t the width of the blanket, it’s actually the across…hypotenuse…whatever the hell you want to call it. The actual width of the blanket is the part stretching from your first stitch up to your needle. :)

For this particular blanket, I used between 2 and 5 strands of yarn at a time, depending on the thickness!  Just throw caution to the wind an go -- it's very liberating.  You can create subtle gradiations by changing only one strand at a time, rather than change all of them like you would need to if you were making stripes.  Then again, it's up to you!