Magic Blanket Ride: The End...

It's done!!! A long ride has come to an end, and today I can finally show you my huge, reversible, grey and white double-ended crochet blanket with multicolored stripes, also known as "The Magic Blanket":

 

I finished the blanket on Thursday and waited until the weather was less dull and cloudy to take some sunny pictures. Today's a cold and sunny day, so I had a little photo session this morning. It still bothers me, that it's almost impossible to get a good full-size picture, so I leave it with these two full-size shots:

(Left: the girl's side - Right: the boy's side)

The final size of the blanket (including the border) is 150cm x 175cm (~ 59in x 69in). Those of you who have followed my statistics might wonder, why the size is still 150cm, although I've added a border - I have no idea, maybe I haven't measured right when I started the blanket, maybe the border draws in a little. Talking about the border, let's have a look:

 

Remember that I've worried about the border in my last post? It was so much easier than I thought it would be! I've found out that with this pattern, I need exactly one sc for a white stripe, and one sc between the stripes to get a flat border, so there was no calculating stitches or wondering where to place them, it all worked out perfectly!

 

I'd like to thank you all for your great suggestions concerning the border! Have you checked out Little Orphan Skein's awesome tutorial for a leapfrog border? It's a great idea for a striped edge like mine and of course I've given it a try. However, I've also tried using just the white yarn, and since the stitches where so easy to place, it looked quite neat and inconspicous - so in the end I've decided to make the base round with white, because it was much quicker and I was eager to finish the blanket.

 

Although I've seen lots of elaborate borders in Edie Eckman's book, I thought a simple border would look best for this blanket. After the white base round, I've made a (1sc, ch1, skip one sc) round with grey, after that a (1sc, ch1) round with white (placing the sc's in the ch1-spaces), then another sc round in grey, and finally - still in grey - a round of reverse sc's, like many of you have suggested.

Now my final evaluation: I've really enjoyed making this blanket and I'm so in LOVE with the finished result, it's the softest piece of fabric I've ever created with a crochet hook! My Mom and Dad immediately fell in love with the blanket when I showed it to them, so maybe I'll make another one for them next year for Christmas (I wouldn't manage it this year, and for now I need a little break from this pattern).

Hey, thank you all so much for joining me on this Magic Blanket Ride! I really enjoyed sharing my experiences here with you, and you really motivated and helped me with all your nice comments and helpful suggestions, you're great!! :)

And now...

The Final Statistics (including border):

Width: 150cm (~59 in)

Length: 175cm (~69 in)

Colored Stripes: 36

Yarn Usage (basic colors): 21 balls of grey + 15 balls of white
Timeline: July 1st - October 20th 2011 (with a big break from August to mid-September)

Days actually worked on the blanket: ~ 51

Estimated hours worked on the blanket: ~ 172

Previous Posts: Introduction - Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4  - Chapter 5 - view everything

Now that this blanket is done, I can finally start with the next big project. Unfortunately I can't tell you more about it (yet), although I'd really love to! It's kind of a secret project, in fact it's so suuuuper secret, that I don't even want myself to know about it *lol*. But I know that I cannot work on a big project without sharing anything at all, that's why I started the "Thursday Thoughts" - I'm a fan of good quotes and thought I'd collect some of my favorite quotes here and share tiny little glimpses of the new project until I can reveal it. And I promise, I will! :)