Then it was many:

Then it was suspiciously familiar:

A slight side-tracking into the joining method:

And now it’s revealed!

Before adding the handle:

And finished!

(well, maybe… I’m debating adding some blue along the tops of the hexes… we’ll see!)

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you my Settlers of Catan bag!

Some folks really like this join, and I’d always secretly thought that they’d talked themselves into liking it because it was faster and more fun than whip-stitching. I have to admit, it’s starting to grow on me!

It’s not hard to do, as I mentioned, you just hold the two motifs together and do sc stitches into a stitch on each of them, at the same time. Hold them right-side out if you want the ridge on the front, and right sides together if you want it on the back.

They each measure about 5″ from side to side. I’m thinking of joining them with sc stitches… I’ve never really liked the look of that joining method, but I’m going to give it another try, as whip-stitching them all together isn’t my idea of fun.

It’s NatCroMo; I’m supposed to have fun!

Here’s the (lazy) pattern:

R1: *dc, ch1* 6 times
R2: *3dc in ch1 sp, ch1* 6 times
R3: *3dc, ch1, 3dc all in ch1 sp* 6 times
R4: 1dc in each previous dc, *dc, ch1, dc* in ch1 sp (8 dc per side)
R5: same as R4 (10 dc per side)

I’ve made a few of them:

What could I possibly be up to? ^_-

I am now taking bets on whether or not this blanket will be finished in time for Big On Bloor.

As for yesterday’s post, well, I’ve lost the sunshine for the day, so just imagine that broomstick lace blanket as being twice as big as it was the last time you saw it, and imagine that rainbow round ripple blanket in the state you last saw it as well. ^_^

A lot of you guessed (although, not in the comments! *shakes a fist*) correctly that this is a Settlers of Catan blanket. To answer the most frequently asked question about it: no, I won’t be making the cities and settlements and roads, etc. It would take forever and besides, the goal here wasn’t to make a soft, giant, usable playing board. The goal was to make a blanket!

Mission accomplished:

For those not familiar with the game, here is a very blurry (yet glare-free!) picture of the board set up to match the layout of the blanket:

Just line up the red arrows in each picture to make the colours match.

Here is a closer look at the different hexes involved:

And this is clearly the best spot to build a city on the board:

How did I do it? Well, I had a very specific plan that involved using yarn I had in the stash already (that lasted for about 5 or 6 hexes, then I had to buy more. A lot more.) a pattern (expertly sketched out on a piece of orange construction paper):

and a cunning plan to “wing it” on the water boarder.

If any of you plan on trying this I have one word of advice: When winging the border, have a look at how the board is actually set up before you start. I discovered only after doing 2 rounds already that the points of the over-all hexagon were in a different place than I thought they were. No, of course I didn’t frog those two rounds… I just got creative!

I’ve labeled the rows in red. Basically, after doing two rounds of sc, then noticing the error, I found the middle stitch on the side where the corner was supposed to be, moved one stitch to the right, did sc, 3dc in next stitch, sc, sl st in next 5 sts, turn. The next row, I think, was something like: sc, dc in dc from previous row, 3dc in the middle st of the previous 3dc, dc in remaining sts plus one dc in each sc from round 2, sl st to the stitch before the end of that side. Turn, sc in first stitch, dc in each stitch across with 3dc in the middle stitch of the previous 3dc, then dc in each stitch until only two are left, then one sc, and one sl st.

This gave me a good base for building the right angle using the next several rounds. I just kept adjusting with dc and hdc until it looked right.

I don’t recommend this if you value your sanity in any way. ^_^

The specs: Bernat Satin, double-stranded throughout. Colours used: Wood (make 4): “Evergreen” and “Sage”, Sheep (make 4): “Spring” and “Snow”, Brick (make 3): “Maitai” and “Bordeaux”, Ore (make 3): “Sterling” and “Grey Mist Heather”, Grain (make 4): “Sunrise” and “Banana”, Desert (make 1): “Banana” and “Silk”. All borders done in “Silk”, Water border: “Sapphire” and “Skipper”. Two balls (one of each colour) made approximately 2 hexes. The border took about 6 balls of the sapphire and 8 balls of skipper (even though the ball band says there’s more of it than the other, the was clearly a LOT less. Regardless, if I had more of this yarn I’d have gone a few more rows anyway).

Finished dimensions: approximately 93 inches from point to point. (That’s 7′9″! Holy cow… no wonder the border seemed to take forever!)

I’m almost done the border:

I’m thinking that it needs a few more rounds of blue. Thoughts?

Once the border is done I just need to make up some number disks and sew them on. Hooray!