The rainbow blanket is complete! It's for Annabel, though she doesn't know that yet. I just snuck it on her bed while she was outside for the photos, as I really hope to save it for her sixth birthday next month. (Six, holy moly.) But I'm pretty much terrible at waiting to give surprises like that, so I'm guessing it'll be a few more days before I can't stand it any longer and decide to surprise her with it in a moment she could use a little extra love. She loves rainbows. No longer does she request to be called Necklace Rainbow Candy Magic, but she'll certainly answer to it if someone calls her that. It's a whole lot of color, this blanket. In a room that's already full of colorful chaos, but oh that suits this girl of mine, and she's going to love it, I know. (The pattern is Granny Stripe Blanket by Attic 24, with the suggested edging, minus the last round because with the ordering of the colors I chose it just looked best to stop there.) It's all stash yarn, worsted weight (and of course I've forgotten how many I chained to start the thing), and I'm amazed I even had such a rainbow in my stash of scraps! I was a bit short on orange and purple, though. (The orange because I don't often love it, and the purple because Harper has hoarded it all.)
I thought for a minute that it needed a matching rainbow pillow, and I got right to work on making this Blooming Flower Cushion with the scraps from the scrap blanket. Quickly though, I got off track thanks to the audio book that I was listening to (even if it's a book I've read four times, I still love A Handmaid's Tale and wanted to read it right before the Hulu adaptation comes out - oh please let it be good!). The increases were off just enough that it was starting to look more like a hat shape rather than a pillow, and that pause gave me enough time to consider the whole project a bit over the top anyway (no offense to the pattern or the lovely writer, just to the combination of blanket plus pillow) and scrap the whole thing. She found it the next morning, abandoned by the fireplace, and we tried it on as a silly hat for a moment before declaring it best suited for a flower on a tree in the woods (since there aren't any real ones yet).
Sometimes, knitting feels entirely practical, utilitarian and filling of a need. Other times, it's just silly and fun. I like both.