Toft Alpaca Beginner Blanket Kit

Ode to Alpacas

I love alpacas. They are so cute. I saw some up close at last year's Woolfest and I now fantasise regularly about owning my own flock. In the meantime, I have to make do with knitting with alpaca yarn and where better to go than the fantastic Toft Alpaca Shop.

The Beginner's Blanket kit was advertised in an email. Not cheap at £80, but you get 800g of their lovely chunky alpaca / wool blend yarn and the printed pattern.I went for cream yarn on this occasion, as I knit far too much grey already.

The blanket is knitted using the yarn double on 20mm needles. The pattern suggested using circular needles due to the number of stitches and the weight of the yarn. However, I had  a go with my 16" long 20mm straight needles, which were fine, albeit a little bit heavy as the blanket grew.

The pattern is simply 30 stitches in moss stitch until you run out of yarn and then you cast off. I finally learned that moss stitch with an even number of stitches is knit one, purl one on the first row and then purl one, knit one on the second row. Up until now, I've avoided even numbered moss stitch because I wasn't sure what to do. Durr!

The blanket knitted up really quickly. My husband said that I looked like a pixie knitting with my giant needles. After I cast off, I tried to take care with weaving in the ends as I've found they can work loose pretty easily in blankets, especially when you have two pet cats trying to pick the ends out with their claws :)

The finished product is a nice lap blanket; heavy and robust. I'm looking forward to my next alpaca-spotting session at Woolfest 2012 next month.

Melx