Would have as many seams.
Two of my close friends from college are expecting their first baby. I learned to knit when my brother and sister-in-law were expecting their first child. My mom told my sister and I that aunts needed to knit or crochet things for their nieces and nephews. That sounded completely insane to me, and I didn't know that I knew anyone who did either, but my sister was knitting the baby a blanket, and I'm nothing if not competitive. Since I learned to knit for that first blanket, I've tried to bring something handknit to all of the baby showers I've attended, including a blanket for this baby-to-be's older cousin. So I knew that I needed to find a really great blanket.
The parents-to-be are big Duke fans, just like me, so I thought our school colors (blue and white) would be perfect even though they're having a little girl (I'm not particularly into gendered colors). Mom is a lawyer who loves literature and classically pretty things, so I wanted to find something kind of romantic and beautiful. Dad is an engineer who likes math and clever things, so I wanted to find something interesting.
Enter Penrose:
C'mon. How perfect is that?
It's so pretty and looks so complicated, but it's made out of two shapes -- a square and a parallelogram. It's Duke blue and white, but still very feminine and classic. And the pattern is based on Sir Roger Penrose's aperiodic tiling, so Oxford-level mathy. I love this blanket so much. If I didn't love these people, I would keep it.
It was really fun to work on, too. Look at the crazy joining!
(Color is off in that first picture.)
I joined each piece to the rest of the blanket as I went along and weaved in the ends at the same time. I think this was necessary for my sanity. I actually like seaming and end-weaving (I'm weird), but we're talking about a lot of seams here. I was shooting for something "baby blanket"-sized (about 38" across), but it actually grew a lot when I blocked it. The final version is about 48" across, so it will be even more useful.
I couldn't be happier with it and I hope it makes the new little girl and her parents happy too.