Shine, shine, shine!

My Knitpicks order arrived! There was a big fat bag of yarn sitting on my chair when I got to work this morning. I always have my packages delivered to work, rather than to my apartment where they will sit in the lobby unattended.

Here is the yarn I got for my friends Tracie and Chris' expected baby.

There are 5 skeins of each color -- butter, apricot, and green apple -- for a baby blanket.

Tracie and Chris won't know the sex of the baby until he/she arrives, so I thought these were safe gender-neutral colors. I still have to pick a pattern. At first, I thought I might do a not-random, but random-looking striped pattern, kind of like the stripe sequence on the Tiptoe socks from Knitty. Then, my mom surprised me with a gift of a new book on knitted blocks for afghans. There is a sample afghan called "Baby Lace" that is made of 3 different lace blocks, each in a different color. I like how it looks, and it doesn't seem too girly. I'll try to post a photo of the pattern tomorrow.

I'm also trying to decide if I should line the afghan with a light fabric or not. I think I might, just to avoid having to weave all the ends! If I line it, I can just knot off the different colors. If I do the lace blanket, though, I might just deal with weaving and not line it ...

Any opinions??