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!

These blankets are going to charity:

(I should get a better picture of that purple one made at the show before I send it off…)

I’m going to make these three bigger and give them as Christmas gifts:

These are Christmas presents, and I’m keeping them as is:

And this one is MINE:

My current main project is a gift for someone who reads this blog, and I really don’t want to give the surprise away if I can help it, so pictures and updates will be made on Ravelry (where you need an account to see it). Don’t worry, once the Big Day has come and gone, I’ll post all of the gory details. ^_^

Now that BOB is over, I find myself with my own crafting time again, so I’m waffling around trying to decide what to do. I’ve joined a couple of swaps, I still need to make the June square in the CAL, and I’ve been itching to just make my way through my growing collection of motif books and make at least one of everything.

Of course, there’s still Christmas coming, and various birthdays left to think about. I’ve been hoping that Bernat Satin would go on sale for the last several months, but I haven’t seen it. If you do, could you please let me know? I’m planning on buying a LOT of it, not only because I’ll need it for some gifts, but also because it’s my go-to yarn for worsted weight acrylic and I’m starting to run low. It’s soft, works up well, and the colours are pretty nice.

Anticipated projects: at least one more Snowflake afghan, maybe the Hawaiian Flower afghan, more 3-way Tunisian, lots of hats and scarves, some geeky afghans, and of course, Dad’s Christmas present.

My work situation has changed and I suddenly find myself with a good chunk of crochet time. That time can only be spent working on a pattern I know really well, and that doesn’t have any tricky colour changes. The project I’ve been working on lately has recently become too large to do while I do my job, so I need a replacement project. For now, I’m prepping some scarves (doing the base chain and first row at home on several), and I’m thinking of doing some granny squares. Any thoughts on what else might work? Basically, anything I don’t have to look at too much, that can easily be done a couple of stitches at a time.

Finally, check out this Spiral Granny Square I made: click here.

This was made using my standard round ripple pattern, though I didn’t have enough of either colour left to make the backwards-sc edging, so I did some slip stitches around instead. I just don’t like leaving those chains bare on the points!

I also finally got around to finishing the Settlers of Catan blanket:

I feel I must apologize for the indoor picture, but there just wasn’t any way to properly display this outside (which should make showing it at BOB interesting!)

At this point in the “prepping for BOB” game, I’m just finishing off projects I’ve started already, and not starting anything new. That means that we can expect to see one more baby blanket, a handful of pin cushions, and a couple more Tetris pieces. Depending on when I finish all of that, I *might* start another baby blanket; after all, I’m going to need SOMEthing to do while manning the table, right?

I’ve got the Settlers of Catan blanket all joined together. At least, I thought I did, until I went to take this picture (which shows the colours beautifully) :

(well, ok, it’s not that shiny in person…)

It turns out I missed joining the sides of two of the water hexes together. I’ll get that sorted out quickly, though.

Here is a picture of it on a queen-sized bed:

It measures about 5′6″ at its longest, and just under 5′ at its shortest.

Questions:

I tried sewing the number 3 on one of the “disks” and didn’t like how it turned out at all. How would you do it?

Secondly, do you think it needs a border? I’m learning towards adding one, but am unsure of whether that should be a size-adding border (probably a round of dc) or just something to finish it off (maybe some backwards sc). I might need to buy more yarn if I decide to put a border on, but I’ll have to do some stash diving first to be sure.

What do you think?

P.S. This is intended for sale at Big On Bloor. Unless I just can’t bear to part with it. ^_-

Let’s see, we’ve got several water hexes for the Catan blanket, to the left of those is some over-exposed light-coloured yarns that make up the border colour for the Catan blanket and that yellow broomstick lace blanket. At the back is a blue and yellow round ripple blanket that would be absolutely stunning if I hadn’t run out of blue with less than 2 rounds left to go. In front of it is a blanket kit that I bought two Christmases ago; it has butterflies on it, or would, if I ever get around to making it. In front of that is an almost-finished blue and green blanket that, when finished, will hopefully have enough blue left over to finish the stunning blanket mentioned above.

Somewhere in there is some light blue yarn waiting for a pattern, and some purple yarn destined to be striped. (The bag of rainbow ripple yarn is on the floor, and thus not pictured.)

^_^

Speaking of looking for a pattern, here’s a fun link: Crochet Poet’s Pattern Collection.

The real news is that I’ve created a page for the Big On Bloor Festival, at least as far as it applies to me, anyway. ^_^ You’ll find a tab for it at the top of this page, next to the Patterns tab (which I swear will have content soon!). There you will find details as to date, time, and location, as well as thumbnail pictures of my planned inventory. If you click on them you’ll find the larger picture on my Flickr photostream.

I was going to put descriptions up, but it’s getting late, so that will have to come tomorrow.

Let me know what you think!

How to efficiently join hexagon motifs together.

Step 1: lay out the motifs how you want them. (Not pictured… I worked off of the pic of the last Catan blanket I made)

Step 2: Start joining the hexes together in horizontal lines. For example, start with the motif in the bottom left and join it to the one to its right. Then join the one to the right of that. And so on until you reach the end of that row. Then start in on the next row and work the same way, until you have something like this:

(I know, it’s a terrible picture, and white was a bad choice for the background, but the other option was a blue floral print. In my defense, I tried that one first, but mostly because I was too lazy to turn the blanket over… but it was worse than this pic, so…)

Step 3: Once you have your rows all laid out, start sewing them together as per the blue line:

That red line is how I’m going to join the blue water hexes. I’m doing it that way because I want to use the cream colour to join the water hexes to the others, but want to use blue yarn to join them to each other.

The red line could also represent putting a border on.

That’s all there is to it! (Ok, I lie… there’s also, “what method should I use for joining?” I’m using a whip stitch, but you could slip stitch or sc, or flat braid, or… )

That’s my niece, Katie, I’m talking about, and I couldn’t be prouder! She recently had a birthday party with all of her friends, and they raised over $200. Then they set up a food and drink stand (I hear there were cupcakes!) where they raised another $100.

I’m amazed at what she’s accomplishing! If you feel like you’d like to contribute to her run, here is the link. You’ll find pictures of their efforts there, as well.

This isn’t her first stint at giving, she has also made a scarf for Mom’s sorority’s children’s charity work (it was yellow, her favourite colour, and made on a Knifty Knitter loom with Patons Melody yarn. I’m bursting, just bursting!)

In other news, here is my progress on the Catan blanket:

Tally:
3 brick – done
3 ore – 2/3 done
4 wood – 1/4 done
4 sheep – 2/4 done
4 grain – 2/4 done
1 desert
18 water

Ok, back to work for me!

We saw it the last time I made a Settlers of Catan blanket. I had “only” a month to make it, and finished it easily in a week. I estimated how much yarn I’d need and ended up with about twice as much. Ok, that last part worked in my favour given that I’m now making the blanket again.

In my last post I asked for bets on whether or not I’d finish this blanket by the time Big On Bloor rolled around, but I’m canceling that, because it just wouldn’t be fair to my new visitors who weren’t around to see the craziness the last time!

This is what I got done last night, including time spent stash diving to find the yarn:

And that’s with a splitting headache, to boot!

Anyhow, here is the goal:

3 brick – done
3 ore – 2/3 done
4 wood – 1/4 done
4 sheep – 1/4 done (not pictured)
4 grain
1 desert
18 water

A couple of notes: First, would you believe that, even though I over-bought the last time I made this, I still managed to run out of the light grey colour? Hopefully I can get another skein of that tomorrow. Second, I’m changing how I do the water. I’m doing hexes this time, because that’s how the original version of the game is set up, and frankly, I was never happy with how the water went on the last blanket.

Other changes from last time are the addition of built-in number disks. I intend on sewing the numbers in once the blanket is together. The hexes are also smaller this time. Last time I did 8 rounds of dc, this time I’m doing 6. The reason for this is that I’m adding extra hexes for the water, and also, the last blanket was necessarily HUGE, and this one needn’t be.

If you’re interested in making this blanket, here’s a rough guide to what I’m doing:

Yarn: Bernat Satin
Hook: 9mm
Double strand.
Check out this post for the exact colours I’m using.

Hex pattern:

Note: To make the number disks do the first two rounds with the border colour (I’m using “Silk”), then switch the appropriate hex colour for the rest, then back to the border colour for the round of sc.

ch 3
Rnd 1: 11 dc in 3rd ch from hook, join with a slst to the top of the ch3
Rnd 2: ch 2 (counts as a dc), dc into base of that ch, 2dc in each st, join. (24 stitches)
Rnd 3: ch 2 (counts as a dc), 2 dc into base of that ch, 1 dc in next 3 sts, *3dc in next st, 1 dc in next 3 sts* repeat until you get all the way around, join (36 stitches, 6 “3dc” groups evenly spaced).

For all following rounds: 3dc in the middle st of the 3dc group of the previous round, 1 dc in all other stitches. Each round the stitch count increases by 12.

Last round: join border colour, ch 1. 1 sc in each stitch around, 3 sc in the middle st of each 3dc group. join.

(Becky’s Law: You WILL overestimate the amount of time/materials you will need, unless you instead overestimate the size the finished project need be.)

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. ^_^