#2 (because I'm #1)-Finished 1am the morning of her party.
#3-I think I finished just before she went away to school.
#4-I think it was a year and a half late
#5-I don't remember exactly, but I do remember it was several/many months after her party
#6 only 1 1/2 months late.
I started this one so many times I was getting pretty frustrated I couldn't find a pattern/idea I liked. I did get a late start on it and finally settled on this in March. I found the idea on this blog Three Beans in a Pod. After doing piece/square blankets for 2 other sisters, I had sworn off doing another (I said the same thing after the first one). But I guess I'm a glutton for punishment and decided to make another.
Given my late start date, it came together pretty fast. I ended up needing several more squares than I thought, so that was disappointing. After I had a fairly large pile, I put it all out on a blanket I had I thought would be a good size and found I was only 12 squares short.
The last time I did piece blankets, stitched everything together. That took forever. I decided to crochet this one together. That's my new favorite method! I put together the entire thing in 2 days. My wrists were pretty sore after that, but I was at the point I just wanted to finish the crazy thing. It was also 83ยบ in my house and it was getting pretty darn hot. (I'm stubborn about the A/C sometimes.)
After putting the squares together, I still had to put a border on it. I happened across a book at the library that had 150 different crochet borders. After paging through it, I bought my own copy online. It has some neat ideas. Around the Corner Most of them you need to know what your stitch multiple you have and that was more thought than I cared at this point. This was one that worked for any multiple. It's a back post stitch and I really like the pop of color it gives.
Now that this one is finished, maybe I can finish some of the other projects I have going. I tend to have ADD when it comes to projects. I get bored with what I'm working on and have too much yarn that is begging to be made into something.
Onto the next project!
PS: I forgot to mention. This circle uses the magic circle method. I hadn't used this before. I discovered (too late, but just before it was the point of no return) that I trimmed my tails too short on the center of the circles. Before washing, I used a yarn needle and looped a piece of yarn through each center, tied a tight knot, then washed. After washing I wove those ends in and trimmed. Had I not put the lifeline in, I ran a huge risk of each center falling apart in the washer. I would have cried. Everything came out of the washer fine. I just warned my sister not to be too rough with it. Lesson learned!
