Error 1601 in iTunes when trying to restore a custom firmware

A program called the firmware umbrella can be used to "kick a device out of recovery mode".

I'm able to restore iOS 5.1.1 on my phone using sn0wbreeze. I'm posting the details here in case someone else encounters the same problem.

Initially I used redsn0w to create a custom firmware file but it failed to restore (with errors mentioned in the question and others like error 14, etc.).

Then I used sn0wbreeze to create a custom firmware stitched with my shsh blobs and iTunes restored it without errors.

Here are the steps I followed:

• Downloaded a firmware that i wanted to restore (5.1.1 in my case).
• Added my shsh blobs for that firmware using iFaith mode in sn0wbreeze.
• Created the custom IPSW in sn0wbreeze and stored it on my desktop.
• Put the iPhone in pwned DFU mode. Use iREB or redsn0w to get into the pwned DFU mode.
• Used the custom ipsw file to restore in iTunes.

I don't know if these things count, but during the process my antivirus was disabled and I had commented out any gs.apple.com lines in my hosts file.