I can't believe how long it has taken me to finish up these four posts and get them posted so you can read this saga. The end of the school year really kept me busy, so I haven't had any time to work on the blog at all - Sorry! Anyway, it's time to finish off this story and show you the end product!
More Delays...
After my last post in November, the truck did finally arrive in Regina (two full weeks after we did) with all of our stuff, so I finally had the rest of the yarn I was waiting on. But by then I was under the wire for making a baby gift for a baby due in early December (the star blanket) and then getting to work on Xmas presents for several of my family and friends (see this post). Also during the holidays I got three orders for items from my Etsy store.
Finally I got back home after travelling during the holidays, and then promptly got a full time teaching job and moved to our new house! This didn't leave much time for crafting. And amazingly, when I did have time, I was scrambling to finish a few more orders from my Etsy store. A good problem to have of course, but I ended up having to put my shop on Holiday Mode so that I could focus my limited crafting time on creating this blanket in time.
By this time it was early March and I was starting to get worried, since I had only about 40% of the squares made for the full blanket pattern I was planning, and we would be leaving for the wedding on May 1. Each night when I was done marking and planning for the next day, I would work on it a bit more, and I took a small project bag with me everywhere. I did my best to use all those typically wasted minutes waiting for appointments and meetings, and I even made a couple of squares while listening to the keynote presentation at Teacher's Convention! I was spending all day each Saturday at the local yarn store The Golden Willow, at their drop-in stitching group, which was good for my productivity, and was also a good motivator. The ladies there were all very supportive, and each time I showed up they excitedly asked how it was going and how close I was now - unfortunately they seemed a little worried it wasn't progressing faster, and frankly so was I.
Here is a shot of the squares I was finishing up on March 29th - when these last two blocks were finished, I was done all the squares of this type. However there were still two more types that weren't quite done yet.. and one had so many left to do...
During Spring Break I decided to start blocking the squares I had so far, so that I could begin assembly. Since this was acrylic yarn rather than a natural fibre, and crochet rather than knitting, I knew that blocking wouldn't be nearly as dramatic as it could be otherwise, but my squares varied in size a fair bit, so I figured it was worth a try. I scoured the Internet for some tips, and found this great tutorial for blocking acrylic yarn. I didn't use her method for making the board, instead I picked up a couple of foam floor mats, and a pile of pins. Using a measuring tape and permanent marker, I mapped out squares on the foam mats, stretched and pinned the squares into place, and then sprayed them with water. I used a cloth to absorb the extra water, and left them to dry over night. While waiting for them to dry I was of course still working on the remaining squares.
The first six squares being blocked
As usual, anything on the floor (or on the bed, or couch, or table...) is fair game for Nikko to investigate and/or sit on.
After two or three days I had enough squares blocked to start assembly. Using my pattern plan, I laid out the squares for the first few rows on my living room floor. Then I picked up the squares for each row in order and bagged and labelled them for easy access.
To assemble each row I used the dark brown yarn (one of the colours that was least used in the squares), and single crocheted the edge of one square to the other while holding them wrong-sides together to make a raised seam. I was hoping that the dark brown raised seams would unify the various designs, and give a many-paned-window effect.
Here are the first few rows all assembled and ready to be joined to each other – starting to look like part of a blanket!
I used the same method to attach the rows to each other, but the seams were much larger and required lots of pins to ensure the blocks lined up just right. Here is the picture of the first two rows that I finished assembling - I was so excited to get to this point...
A friend from the stitching group invited me over for a crafting date during the week, and I put the first few rows together at her place. Here is the blanket after spending the afternoon at her place - the first six rows were in place. It was INCREDIBLY hard not to post this picture on Facebook or on here as soon as I took it. I was so glad finally to have something to show for my months of work, but I couldn't tell the world, just a few friends locally, to avoid spoiling the surprise!
By now I had decided that I probably would not make it to the full length I had originally planned (11 rows long), and that maybe that would have been too long anyway. Instead I figured that I would make a perfect square (7 x 7 squares) and then add two or three more rows beyond that, and see how far I got before I ran out of time and had to switch to finishing: making a border and weaving in the last ends.
A couple of days later I took this picture and then the next day at school I showed it to someone proudly and then nearly had a heart attack - what happened to my beautiful diagonal pattern?
As I looked at this picture, I thought that I has somehow mixed up the pattern on several rows, and I couldn't figure out how it had happened - I had been so careful! That night when I went home and took a look, I realized that I had simply attached the most recent vertical row (on the far right in this picture) on the wrong edge of the blanket! I had marked the wrong corner as the starting point (you can see a bit of orange yarn hanging off the block in the top left corner - I had meant to mark the same block in the top right, but somehow got the blanket turned around!
So luckily it was only one seam that I had to rip out and I moved the offending row to its proper place:
Now I had a perfect square, and knew that if all else failed, I could stop here, weave in the ends and put a border on, and I would be happy the with the result. This was very good for my stress levels. I still planned to add a couple more rows, but it was nice to know I could stop at any time and it would be ok.
After Spring Break ended of course I was busy again, but I kept carrying my little project bag with me everywhere, and I did by best to finish up the last few squares - the striped block is the one that I had the least of, and it was holding up getting any further on this project. Here's Nikko lying beside me in bed on a weekend morning watching me finish one of these last squares.
On April 20th, I was just one square away from being able to attach my last two rows:
I got it finished later that day, and attached, and then I got to work weaving in the ends from the assembly, and making one final round of the dark brown around the outside before I began my border. Here I am trying to work on this during a board game with a friend who was visiting from out of town that weekend. Oh yeah and of course Nikko was trying to sit on the blanket while I worked - not particularly helpful, but cute as always.
Brown edging done - Nikko looks like he approves of the blanket:
Here we go - all ready for the border!
When I had almost finished the assembly, I consulted with the ladies at my stitch group to decide on a border. We all agreed that it should be a pretty simple border in one of the brighter colours from the blanket (bright blue, green, or orange) - and finally decided to go with the orange since it is the bride's favourite colour.
So once the brown pre-border row was done, I selected my go-to-simple-border (#114) from the pattern book Around the Corner, got out my bright orange yarn and got to work:
I finished the blanket (the last of the border, and then weaving in the last few ends) on the Saturday before our Wednesday trip, at my stitch group. What a relief to have it done! Then I packed it up for the trip (it literally took up half of my suitcase) as you can see below:
With this all-important project done, I proceeded to run around like a chicken with my head cut off trying to finish EVERYTHING ELSE I had to do before I left – like all the preparations and sub plans for being away from my four high school classes for four days, and frantically searching for Deep's passport, which turned out to be expired (thank goodness for living in a city with a proper passport office and being able to pay for last minute service!), and packing up everything else we'd need for the trip....
We finally arrived at my in-laws (we had an overnight layover in Toronto and they live two hours away so we stayed with them) and I realized I had no pictures of the whole finished blanket, so we took one before leaving for the airport. You can see my mother-in-law and two of my in-laws' four cats in the picture with me.
In Germany At Last!
When we arrived in Germany and got to our friends' apartment in Halle, I was bursting with excitement to give them the blanket. Her fiancé was out for a bit (trying to find parking for their rental van), and I had intended to wait until they were both there, but finally I couldn't wait anymore.
When I brought the blanket into the living room I got exactly the reaction I was hoping for: something along the lines of "Holy &*$% Christine! I can't believe this!" She is a crocheter herself, so I knew she would appreciate the amount of work and love that had gone into this blanket. It was nice to hear it though!
It turned out that we were short on blankets that night at her place, so she actually slept with the new blanket, and pronounced it nice and warm. All throughout the visit the bride and groom and her family kept commenting on the blanket - I'm glad it was such a hit!
Shortly after getting the blanket...
On the morning of the wedding...
After the wedding...
And of course, here's the happy couple – aren't they adorable?
Recently in an email from the bride I got the following note:
Makes me feel all warm and happy inside that a piece of me is with her and keeping her company all the way over in Germany - that was the whole point after all.
Here's a picture from today of the two of them - so painfully cute!
And one final picture of the whole blanket:
Well that's the saga, thanks for reading this far.
Keep crafting!
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