Knitting Till My Hands Fall Off

You have no idea how much my hands ache.  I finally finished my baby blanket today, with minutes to spare.  I had to knit for 5 hours straight to complete it.  The finished product was about 35 inches long (I was shooting for 36).

This picture shows the blanket folded over (with a close up of the basket weave pattern).

The following picture shows the entire blanket as laid out on the bed.

In a perfect world, I would have blocked it so the edges were straight, but when you get the finished product off your needles at 12:45 p.m., and  the baby shower starts at 2:00 p.m., there is no option but to just wrap it up.

As luck would have it, my gift was the last one opened at the shower.  When the mother-to-be unwrapped it, I got emotional because this is my first true knitted gift and it was for such a wonderful woman and the baby she always dreamed about.   When she held it up, I was surprised by how nice it really looked (close up I can see all of my mistakes).  

I learned a few things while knitting this project:  (a) I am not a marathon knitter, just let me knit a few hours every day and I will be fine; (b) I am terrible at budgeting my time for knitted projects; and (c) I would like to knit a baby blanket for myself one day (but I'm not holding my breath).