Taa daah! The finished mini-blanket:

Evie and Danielle ask about how I worked the corners of my I-cord edging. Rather than mitering them I use a little loop of free I-cord to accomplish the turn. It’s super simple. I’m working the I-cord rounds as K3, SSK, pick up one in main body edge. Then I push all the stitches back to the right of my needle, strand tightly across the back and repeat.

When I get to the corner, instead of picking up one in the main body edge, I work that last attachment round as K3, SSK but I don’t pick up one in the main body edge. I follow that round up by about 8 rounds of plain 4-stitch I-cord (K4, slide stitches to right, strand tightly across back, repeat). Once enough plain I-cord has been worked, I start back up with a joining round of K4, pick up one in the main body edge, followed by perpetual K3, SSK pick up one rounds. This makes a nice, thick corner loop – very handy for potholders, hot pads, mitten edges, or kiddie nap blankets, any of which might need to hang from hooks.

It’s obvious that fewer rounds of plain I-cord will make a smaller corner loop, but too few make an extremely tight and awkward corner. I’ve even knit a whole bunch more than I needed, then tied the resulting free “snake” in a simple overhand knot before going on to the rejoin step. This same principle can be used to make buttonhole loops in between I-cord edging and the main body, by deliberately skipping a bunch of attachment points and working a segment of free I-cord, rejoining after the buttonhole’s desired width is achieved. I’ve also used I-cord as a seaming technique, to unite separately knitted front and back panels into a pillow:

I included zippers in these two pattern sampler pillow covers to enable easy washing.

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