Piece Of Cake Blanket

In amazing Fiddlehead alpaca, our Piece Of Cake Blanket is a slice of delightful knitting, a sweet celebration of color, and a wonderful project that is, in fact, a piece of cake!

Following a traditional log-cabin construction, you first work the Silver Lilac rectangle near the middle, then rotate and pick up stitches along its edge to knit the next block in Black-Eyed Susan, and around in a spiral you go!

In our super bulky Fiddlehead, this beauty knits up at lightning speed, but you may want to linger on this incredibly soft 100% alpaca. Its wavy structure is similar to a bouclé, which creates a wonderfully curly fabric that makes for an amazingly light and terrifically warm blanket.

From the first rectangle in Silver Lilac to the last in Heirloom White, the icing on the cake is getting to knit with seven of Fiddlehead’s beautiful colors. Each one is a mix of two shades of alpaca roving, which results in a beautiful complexity and deeply satisfying knitting.

With eleven skeins for the crib size and sixteen for the throw, each Piece of Cake Bundle has exactly what you need, so you can have your cake and snuggle up under it, too!

If you love the yarn used in this project, you’ll love all of our other yarn, too! Explore our 35+ lovingly created yarn collections, in nearly every natural fiber and spectacular color you can imagine… Only available here at Purl Soho’s online yarn shop!

Share your progress and connect with the community by tagging your pics with #PurlSoho, #PurlSohoBusyHands, #PurlSohoPieceOfCakeBlanket, and #PurlSohoFiddlehead. We can’t wait to see what you make!

Materials

Our Piece Of Cake Blanket Bundle includes (NOTE: the Piece Of Cake Blanket Bundle is no longer available.)…

11 (16) skeins of Purl Soho’s Fiddlehead, 100% alpaca yarn. Each skein of this super bulky yarn is approximately 65 yards/ 100 grams.

Color A: 2 (4) skeins of Silver Lilac; approximately 120 (250) yards required
Color B: 1 (2) skein(s) of Black-Eyed Susan; approximately 60 (100) yards required
Color C: 1 (1) skein of Warm Ginger; approximately 40 (65) yards required
Color D: 2 (2) skeins of Pink Sea; approximately 80 (130) yards required
Color E: 1 (2) skein(s) of Ocean Air; approximately 60 (100) yards required
Color F: 2 (3) skeins of Desert Gray; approximately 100 (165) yards required
Color G: 2 (2) skeins of Heirloom White; approximately 80 (130) yards required

You will also need…

US 11 (8 mm), 40-inch circular needles
Spare US 11, 60-inch circular needles; or scrap yarn and same size or slightly smaller needles of any length
A removable stitch marker or scrap yarn

NOTE: Spare needles are for putting stitches on hold that you later knit. If you’d rather use scrap yarn, you can. Just be sure you have spare needles to slip the on-hold stitches onto so you can knit them when the time comes!

GAUGE

9 stitches and 18 rows = 4 inches in garter stitch

NOTE: For the Crib size, you’ll use almost all of Colors A, B and E, and for the Throw size, you’ll use almost all of of Colors A, C, D, and G. To avoid running out of yarn, make sure to achieve this gauge, keep tails short, and use other colors for your swatch.

SIZES

Crib (Throw)

Finished Dimensions: Approximately 30 inches wide x 44 inches long (40 inches wide x 58 inches long)

SAMPLE: We knit up the Crib size.

NOTES

CONSTRUCTION

SPECIAL INSTRUCTIONS

GARTER RIDGES

A “garter ridge” is two rows of knit stitches. It looks like a raised horizontal stripe, although in Fiddlehead, the garter ridges are a bit obscured by the texture of the yarn. If you’re having trouble counting ridges, either use the measurements we give in the pattern or work twice the number of ridges, counting rows as you go.

PICKING UP STITCHES

For the cleanest pick-up edge, insert the needle into the outer most bump along the edge of the garter ridge. For help, please visit our Picking Up Stitches tutorial and scroll down to the “Along a Vertical Edge: Garter Stitch, Into The Ridge.”

PATTERN

BLOCK A

With Color A, cast on 16 (20) stitches. We used a basic Long Tail Cast On.

Row 1 (wrong side): Knit to end of row.

Row 2 (right side): Knit to end of row.

Mark right side of fabric with scrap yarn or removable stitch marker.

Knit every row until piece measures approximately 21 (27) inches from cast-on edge and until you have 48 (60) garter ridges (see Special Instructions), ending with a wrong-side row.

Slip all 16 (20) stitches onto spare needles (or scrap yarn).

Cut Color A.

BLOCK B

With right side facing you, turn piece 90 degrees clockwise so left selvage is at the top.

With Color B, pick up and knit (see Special Instructions) 48 (60) stitches along top edge.

Knit every row until piece measures approximately 7 (9) inches from cast-on edge and you have 16 (20) garter ridges, ending with a wrong-side row.

Slip all 48 (60) stitches onto same spare needles (or scrap yarn).

Cut Color B.

BLOCK C

With right side facing you, turn piece 90 degrees clockwise so Block A cast-on edge is at the top.

With Color C, pick up and knit 16 (20) stitches along Block B selvage, then 16 (20) more stitches along Block A cast-on edge. [32 (40) total stitches]