Finished the border, started another.

The blanket I began in June is closing on finished - but unfortunately, not as quickly as I hoped.  I finished the border this week, and grafted the beginning to end, and measured:

According to the Warm Up, America! website, an adult blanket is supposed to be 49"x63".  After the border was added (five and a half skeins of Bernat Super Value Stripes, I'm glad I bought the extra one), it measures 44 inches by roughly 60 inches:

I recognize that the WUA size is based upon 49 blocks measuring 7"x9" put into a seven-by-seven grid.  However, it seems better to me to come as close to their required measurements as possible.  Quick math shows mine is three inches short in length and five inches short in width - not a discrepancy than can be easily hidden when adding a quick crocheted border, which had been my plan.

So instead of simply adding a border and done, I am adding inches.  I picked up from the back so there would be echoing bands that appear to be slip-stitch on the front of the blanket.

And the blanket is back to being a big wad of knitting.

I plan to add eight rows (four ridges) of garter stitch all around, since that works out to about one inch.  Then I will bind off the short sides and add more on each of the long sides, then do a crocheted border around the whole thing to make it tidy and finished.  That should be the required size, or close enough if my guesses about the purples multi yarn quantity are correct.

I did take time to make another of the Bernat Alize Blanket-EZ Stripes scarves this afternoon:

I wanted to see I could accomplish it in an hour.  Once again it took about two hours and would have taken less had there not been some extraordinary tangles where the yarn had gone through loops of itself.  I was tempted to take a photo but was too focused on figuring out how to un-do it without having to cut - and I managed. 

This means my hope of doing one of the DFW Fiber Fest do-along patterns by next weekend have gone to nil.  I will try to have one or both done for next year.  And I'll need to do them quickly, as they might issue new patterns for next year - they've done a few in the past.