Anna’s Blanket

Since surgery in mid July I’ve spent the greater part of each day sitting on the couch. Such mobility restrictions, not being able to do for yourself or go where you want, can be frustrating. But while my feet haven’t been moving much my hands have been going almost nonstop! My crochet output has been record breaking!

In exactly fourteen days in late August/early September I crocheted a throw/afghan. That is a record! Considering that it usually takes me months if not years to accomplish such a thing I was more than pleased! There are definitely bright spots to being so restricted!

Thankfully my activity is now on the increase. The cast is gone, replaced by a very heavy boot, and I am ambling around, be it ever so s-l-o-w-l-y, with a cane. It will be awhile before I am enjoying full mobility which means I’m still able to crochet quite a bit.

Earlier this year when I completed the Weekender Blanket (that took nearly 2 years to finish) both of my daughters dropped subtle hints that they’d like it, or one similar.

 

In fact the hints weren’t all that subtle … “You made this for me, right?” was heard on more than one occasion, by both daughters! So I figured, is there a better time than now when I have uber-much time on my hands?

I searched Pinterest looking for the right granny square pattern and spent several days trying out different designs. Do you have any idea how many possibilities there are?

Eventually I settled on a combination of the Sunburst Square and the Rosie Posie Square. At first glance it would appear they’re the same but there are differences in construction. And what I did was take the best of both, in my opinion of course, and morphed them into a square slightly different than the originals.

What I found hugely helpful was the tutorial by Joanne at her Craft Passion blog that guides you through how to systematically place your colors in each square so that no two squares are alike. It’s the math of crochet! But don’t let that trip you up. I did it very simply with graph paper and checked off the color combinations as I crocheted them.

The throw measures about 58 inches by 70 inches and contains 63 squares; seven rows of nine squares. The squares, a total of five rounds with the last two being white, were joined using the join-as-you-go method. (There are many tutorials for the method, both video and pictorial, that can be found online.)

Anna is delighted with the blanket. She keeps it folded at the foot of her bed and I imagine as the weather continues to cool it will be used more and more.

Older daughter Molly wants to know when her blanket will be ready. Yes, I do have one in the works for her after several false starts. I am hoping her blanket will be finished before too long.

Next time I’ll share some more projects I’ve been working on ….