Granny Square Blanket

It's official , my first successful baby blanket is packaged up, addressed and ready to go. Earlier this year, I tried a baby blanket that didn't quite "shape" up correctly. Parallelograms are a nice shape but not great for blankets. The Lion Brand Bright Baby Blanket was a giant granny square that while still not entirely square was a lot closer. In fact, if I had dared to block it might have perfectly square. However, when it comes to hand made isn't perfect a little overrated. I know, I know, it probably would be better and more polished to block the piece before giving it to my friend but I was so nervous things would go badly. I have never blocked before so I didn't want to try on a gift. One of my next projects is a blanket I want to make for myself so I will practice blocking on that.

Anyway, I am hoping that my friend won't lay the blanket on the floor a lot or scrutinize the back stitches. (I wove those threads in like crazy but you never know). I did use the machine washable Cascade Yarns 100% Superwash wool in magenta, pink, apple green, and white. The yarn was a good quality that split very little and worked up nicely. I am also now a big fan of this pattern too. It only took me about a month and half to finish and that was with some breaks due to some busy nights where I couldn't watch TV and therefore crochet. The color changes kept the pattern from getting boring and I am now inspired to make more in an array of different color combinations. Although, next time I do it I think I will follow the pattern a little more carefully. I didn't realize until I was almost done that I was suppose to work three rows of the light pink color (the color I chose as my main color) each time. Instead I just did one row of light pink in the sequence. I think this design choice looked fine but I did end up almost running out of the other colors and having a lot of light pink left. To use up some of that pink I did four rows and the end as a border. I liked the border but the more I looked at that pink the more it resembled Pepto-Bismol to me. Hopefully my friend won't think so.

Now that the blanket is finished I am moving on to the PDQ hat from the Happy Hooker book. After finishing a long project like a blanket it is always fun to start something small that I can finish quickly.