Thursday, November 17, 2016

The four points Blanket

 This is a story about a gift.

It started out going to be a gift for one person.

But it ended being a gift for someone else.

It started like this.

I found a pattern that I absolutely loved. 

Go ahead -- go take a look.

A linen baby blanket.

I've never worked with linen and I wanted easy care.

So I bought some of my favorite acrylic yarn for this and proceeded to follow the instructions.



I started this just before my end of summer beach trip. 

I followed the instructions to the letter and realized quickly that this was going to be no BABY blanket. 

OK, change plans.

I needed a wedding gift. 

Thus - this became Dean and Stephanie's big ol' blanket. 



Easy colors.

Blue, Grey, Cream, and Tan.

Miles and miles of single crochet. -- literally (I worked on it in the car) 

I was really pretty OVER  decreasing rows of single crochet by the time this was finished. 

And then it was finished.

And it is huge.

Like easily double snuggle huge. 

The perfect weight for a great blanket.
(come on you all know that favorite feeling) 

and the yarn felt great. 

But by golly --- the damned thing curls like Shirley Temple's hair?

I wet blocked - nope
I steam blocked - nope

So I tried my own method for stopping curling.

I added a brown border ----

Yup -- fixed it. 

Then I had a huge fight with MaggieGrace (myself) about keeping it. 

Well - Dean and Stephanie won a fight they didn't even know they were having. 

And here's the finished result. 





I took it to the city park for a photo shoot. 

the floor of the gazebo so I could stand on the bench for a full shot.



Last minute statements about the pattern. 

It is beginner simple.
Lot's of SC and SC decreases.
It's made in two halves and then sewn together. 
Blocking may work to fix curled edges on some yarns - but you can always use a border band to fix it too. 

I found it fun to read all the how to increase the size of the blanket questions in the comments. I know they all meant how to with the linen yarn, but I chose another method.
If you want a bigger blanket --- simple ---  use bigger yarn. 

My final say on the pattern. 

I LOVE IT AND I WILL DEFINITELY DO IT AGAIN. 

As soon as I recover from those miles and miles of single crochet.