Making of... The Wedding Blanket (Part 3)

Welcome to the third an last part of my "Making of... The Wedding Blanket" series!

Remember? In February I wasn't happy with the blanket at all, it started to ruffle and I didn't feel like adding another frame of little squares:

But somehow I had to carry on: I continued with the granny pattern, and when I thought the blanket was big enough (and I ran out of yarn again), I decided to change from the granny stripes to a different pattern to create something that looked liked a frame but without making more little squares like I had actually planned. The basic color of the third frame is lavender, I started with two rounds of simple dc's, but that seemed a little bit dull. The thin lines in yellow, mint, purple and white are rounds of *1sc, ch1, skip one dc*, the thicker rows in lavender are dc's again (worked into the sc's and the ch1-spaces). I made up this frame spontaneously as I worked along, but I really liked it in the end.

For the final border I had to use the colors I had still left: yellow and purple (the yarn store had run out of the other colors and I was running out of time). The pattern I've used is #120 from Edie Eckman's book Around The Corner - Crochet Borders. It features some front post dc's, is easy to make and looks beautiful but not too overwhelming. It's perfect! For the very last row I've made one round of reverse sc's to finish it off.

One problem still remained however: the blanket was ruffling more than ever (unfortunately I forgot to take some pictures), and I knew I couldn't give it as present the way it looked back then. I was discussing this matter with the whole family, we had plans to somehow build a big wooden frame to block the huge blanket like I'm blocking my little motifs - but with nails instead of pins... I also thought about ironing the blanket, but actually I didn't want to touch it, because I was afraid to make things worse. Luckily, my aunt (Mrs Craft herself *gg*) came to visit us at that time (a week before the wedding), and she took care of the problem: we spread the blanket out on the carpet in my parents' living-room, put clean sheets on it, and then she ironed it with steam. That was when I took those pictures:

 

The final size of the blanket is 170cm x 170cm (67" x 67"), large enough for the happy newly weds (they're both not very tall) :)

Thank you all for following this "Making of..."-series, I'm glad I could share the process at last - and hopefully the next big project won't be a super-secret one... :)