Picking up stitches

[F2F]

I'm new here and I'm confused by one of the directions in a pattern I am working on. I am knitting a blanket and I am doing a border for the very first time. It has asked me to pick up 61 stitches on the vertical edge, but there are far more than 61 rows on the vertical edge. There is 6 colour changes with 18 rows per colour, plus an 8 row border at the top and bottom. Am I picking up on stitch for every 2 rows? Can someone help clarify this for me?

[F2F]

Here is the link to the blanket I am working on http://www.knitknack.biz/download/Groovy.pdf

[Jan in CA]

I'd say its the difference between row and stitch gauge. Stockinette stitches aren't square so you'd be picking up a different number. I don't see any errata so try following the pattern and see what happens.

[MerigoldinWA]

This blanket is basically stockinette stitch. When I pick up stitches along a st st vertical edge I usually pick up 1 in each stitch for 3 stitches and then skip one. Repeat that sequence. Possibly because the gauge is quite big they are skipping more stitches. But I just want to point out that the number you pick up really doesn't matter. Well, it matters in that if it is too many it will ruffle up and if not enough it will pull in, but the number doesn't matter, the result does. You can try picking up every other stitch and seeing if that looks good (they give an odd number, but even that is not 100% necessary as long as you work knits over purls and purls over knits so that you get seed stitch) and fudge at the end to get the odd number if you need to (and want to). If it doesn't look good you might try to pick up in each of 2 and skip one or even 1, 2, 3, skip and see what happens. (It is easy to rip out and redo until you get a good result) I never worry about picking up the number they say to anymore, but just what seems best. Of course, you want to do it the same way on each side within a stitch or two.

[salmonmac]

Hi and welcome to KH!
I agree with MerigoldinWa, this is not an exact process and a stitch more or less is not going to matter. Try picking up a stitch every other row and see how that looks. This video may help if you needl to see the technique.
It's a simple but very pretty pattern. Post a picture if you'd like. We'd love to see the finished blanket.

[suzeeq]

When you pick up sts on a vertical edge, at the end of the rows, you won't want to pick up in every stitch unless you want a ruffle. The usual pick up rate is 3 sts for every 4, or 2 for every 3.