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In 2011, I decided to knit something giant. But I didn’t really know where to start. There were no tutorials available, so I was flying blind.

First, I bought six pounds of unspun wool roving, then I went to the hardware store and bought broomsticks to act as knitting needles. When the broomsticks were too small, I went back and bought 1.5″ diameter PVC pipe. I turned each five-foot length of pipe into “knitting needles” by adding duct-tape tips, and just started knitting. A few hours later, I had my Giganto-Blanket.

When I posted a video of myself knitting the blanket, I was suddenly getting a lot of requests for the pattern. So I wrote up the Giganto-Blanket pattern and put it up online, and now I even sell the finished blankets on Etsy.

More info: nocturnalknits.com | Etsy

Like Atlas, but with wool

Don’t look now, but you’ve got a giant ball of yarn behind you…

On the needles

Those knitting needles are five feet long. Seriously.

Playing with scale

Tiny bed or giant blanket? Oh wait, is that a cat?

All balled up

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These balls of yarn are ready to be knit into a Giganto-Blanket.

It’s so squishy

Really, you can’t imagine how soft it is.

Free People custom design

Free People asked me to make a version of the blanket for their holiday shop.

Giant yarn, cat + spinning wheel

Neither the cat nor the spinning wheel is required for making the blanket, but they sure to do look cute sitting there.

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My first attempt

It turns out knitting on broomsticks wasn’t good enough. I had to go bigger!

Cabled Giganto-Blanket

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The giant scale of the knitting makes for really dramatic cable patterns.

Free People custom design

Free People decided to call it the “Big Sky Blanket” – they sold out almost immediately.

Quality assurance

My cat Magnus likes to inspect each blanket and give me feedback.

Tiny cat?

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Molly is a small cat, but next to the Giganto-Blanket she looks downright miniature! (She loves “helping” me knit my blankets.)

Pure comfort

It turns out the blanket is my cats’ favorite place to sleep.