Crochet blanket update

Hi from Caz!! :)

4 weeks ago I posted a project that I was embarking on..............to make CROCHET blankets for my nieces for Christmas, and I am very pleased to report to you today that I am 1 down, only 1 to go!!!!!!!!

I am only this far because I had my dear mad mother 'Di' here for two weeks to help me, lol. We worked very hard to get the 224 squares for the first blanket finished and I have spent a few weeks working hard to put it all together.

So today I am going to show you how to finish off the blanket and a give you a few tips from my mistakes.

Once all the squares are finished you need to lay them out on a piece of fabric, an old sheet will do, for mine we bought a piece of calico. (please excuse my not so great photos but I had no intention of trying to move this down to the garden to take pictures!!)

Lay all the squares out, at this point we weren't too fussy about how we lay them out because there isn't a set pattern. But once we had them down we did look to see if there were any 'patches' of the same{ish} colour ways that stood out.

The next task is to get all the sqaures pinned to your fabric, this is a BIG job!

Once they are all pinned down, roll the fabric from the bottom into a big sausage. When you are ready to crochet the squares together, unroll the 'sausage' just enough to be able to see the rows you are working on, and at the end of each joined row, remove the pins from the top row.

When you have finished crocheting all the rows one way, you will find doing the perpendicular ones a little easier as the blanket will be off the fabric.

You can now crochet all around the edge of the blanket!

And there you have it! One completed 'hand made with love' Christmas gift :)

Things I learnt making this blanket!

You need to concentrate just a little, lol, or else you will land up with very funny looking squares {heehee}

Don't start to crochet a row together unless you plan to get to the end in one sitting {crochet stitches unravel themselves if left unattended!}

Give yourself enough time to finish the blanket if making one as a gift {a project this size will become a chore if rushed and a chore is not enjoyable!}

Make sure the wool you use is easily available, we needed far more of the base colour (purple in this blanket) than we originally thought {we bought ours in Wilkinsons and thankfully there was always a good supply on the shelves!}

I still have another blanket to make and so far I have completed 5 squares! Only 219 more to go :)

Don't forget to check back in month for an update!!

haPPy creATing!

Caz

xx