Basketweave blanket update

I finally managed to get some half-decent photos of the blanket I made recently for Amelia's cot, now the nights are getting a little colder.

Basketweave is one of my favourite patterns for knitting, and it's so easy and quick to knit up into a repeating pattern that is striking in its simplicity.  I particularly liked knitting with this yarn, Sirdar Denim Ultra.  It is quite 'splitty' to knit with, so you need your wits about you, but the shade of brown I used was made up of about 10 strands comprising cream, dark chocolate and milky coffee colours which worked so well together.

To come up with the pattern, I simply measured up the size of Amelia's cot (well, looked it up on the IKEA website, because I do most of my knitting while she's asleep in said cot!) and checked out the ball band.  Denim ultra knits to 9 stitches & 12 rows to 10x10cm on 10mm needles.  I don't have 10mm needles, so I knitted it up with 10 stitches to 12 rows on 9mms and tried to keep my knitting on the loose side. 

I wanted my blanket to have 10mm "squares", so I cast on 70 stitches, k10 and p10 (repeat) until I'd knit 12 rows.  Then I swapped to p10, k10 to create the woven effect.  120 rows gave me a blanket that was 70cm x 100cm and fitted the cot a treat.  It took just over 4 balls of the yarn.  If I had more of this yarn, I might have knit up several more panels to make a larger throw for an adult sized bed.  It also makes a great textured cushion cover, just measure up how much you'd need to form an envelope around a cushion pad, and get knitting!

As it is, I'm keeping an eye on eBay as there are some great bargains to be had at the end of the season, and a blue denim version would be just the thing for my nephew's bed.