Archive for the ‘11 Blankets’ Category

Totally Worth It

I made this Luigi blanket for my nephew for Christmas:
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It took more than two and a half months to complete. Weaving in the ends took longer than the actual crocheting part! Would you believe that there were a whopping 1040 ends to weave in on this blanket? 1040. Crazy.

It is made up of one-round granny squares, joined using this join-as-you-go method (because if I had to make all of the squares first and then join them all together afterwards, this blanket would never have been made!).

The real challenge here wasn’t the many, many ends to weave in. It was actually the lack of real estate to actually do the weaving. One of the benefits of using that joining method is that any square can be removed without disturbing the surrounding squares, which would be ruined by traveling the ends from one square to another. So, each end had to be woven in with only 12 stitches to work with. 1040 times.

But you know what?
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He was over the moon about it!

Totally worth it. ^_^

Seraphina’s Shawl

The shawl is finished!
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After Ponoka, we drove for what seemed like 17 days (but was more like 5 or 6 hours…) to the ranch. During the drive, we went through no fewer than 3 massive storms.

It’s important to understand something here: Charles has been telling me since we met that he just loves it when it rains because it very rarely did so in Alberta. Perhaps we have global warming to blame, or perhaps I bring rain with me wherever I go, but if there is one thing I can say about the trip to Alberta, over all, is that it was wet. Really wet.

In Charles’ defense, though, he grew up on the ranch, and while we were on the ranch, it was bright and sunny.

The pictures of the sky on our trip from Ponoka to the ranch are on Charles’ Xoom (because I was too busy driving to take pictures) and I don’t have them yet. They’ll have to be in another post!

Anyhow, back to the shawl… I can not emphasize this enough: if you are going to attempt to make a Seraphina’s Shawl: CHECK FOR ERRATA. Seriously.

When I first found the pattern on Ravelry, I saw that it was linked to the designer’s website, and also to a forum post on Crochetville. I knew that there was errata, but I assumed (to my folly) that the pattern on the designer’s website had been updated with the changes. Also, it had step-by-step pictures! How could I go wrong?

I saved the whole page before getting on the plane. Ye gads. The thing is rife with errors. I consider myself to be a fairly advanced crocheter, so I put my considerable experience to the task and… well, it IS shawl-shaped… but don’t ask me how I got it that way.

The really fun part came after I was off the plane and out of Internet-free Ponoka, when I finally had Internet access again, but I still couldn’t fix the shawl because it was mostly done. No, even though I now had the correct stitch counts (I think!), I had to figure out what I had done on the plane so that I could continue with THAT pattern instead…

It was madness!

In other news… hey look! I finished a blanket!
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Actually, I finished this some time ago! It is living happily (and no doubt dry-ly) at the ranch. Merry Christmas!

This blanket was made using Bernat Berella 4, in a variation on my Oddly Linked Blanket pattern (the pattern for which is for sale here: http://fantasticmio.com/shop/ )

Not A Transporter Accident

Have you ever been making a blanket in the round and about half-way through the pattern you find yourself thinking, “no, seriously, this was supposed to be a baby blanket all along!” and possibly, “two feet square is plenty big for a baby!”.

As I am not the kind of crocheter who suffers from flights of fancy, and always, always finishes a project before moving on to the next, I never have this problem. (Hey, reader: you’re supposed to be quietly surfing the Internet right now, not snickering at your monitor! :P) But I like to help out where I can, so… crochet from the outside-in!

I’ve shown this technique before (remember that granny square?), but this is the first time I’ve tried it on a larger scale.

This blanket measures approximately 4′ square, and is composed entirely of dc stitches, with dc5tog on the corners:
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Look!
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The trick to doing a square this way, is to start exactly in the centre of a side, and to make sure that the stitches on a side (not including the corner) are evenly divisible by 4.

So, for this blanket, I started by doing 80 fdc stitches (that’s foundation double crochet), doing a fdc5tog (foundation double crochet 5 together decrease), then 160 fdc, fdc5tog, 160 fdc, fdc5tog, 160 fdc, fdc5tog, 80 fdc, and join. From there on, it was just a case of working one dc into each stitch, and working a dc5tog at the corners (into the dc5tog of the previous round and two dc stitches on either side of it).

You have to be very, very careful when joining the first round. Make extra sure that you haven’t twisted it! I laid mine out on a table to double check.

Once it was joined, though, it was super easy, and to my surprise, the blanket remained portable for longer than it would have had I started in the middle. Working the first 20 or so rounds felt a lot like making a really, really long scarf.

The best part, though, was that each subsequent round was shorter than the previous round, so it felt like I was speeding towards the finish, which you may recognise as being the opposite feeling to what you normally get when making a blanket in the round. :)

Here’s a closer look at the middle:
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For the last round, the middle round, I had planned to do 4 dc5tog’s, but by the time I got there I decided to try something different – I did 10 dc2tog’s instead. After you do the join, you use the tail to weave in and out of the tops of the stitches, and pull the hole closed like a drawstring.

You should try it! And if you do, let me know!