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... :)

Making of... The Wedding Blanket (Part 2)

Welcome to the second part of my "Making of... The Wedding Blanket"

The center of the blanket (granny square, first frame and a few more rounds of granny pattern) was finished by November:

Now it was time to begin with the squares for the second frame,...

... and so I made 24 Circle of Friends Squares (I think this beautiful square is my alltime favorite granny square pattern!)...

... sewed them together using an Invisible Stitch Joining Method...

... to form the second frame:

Then I had to adjust the size of the center of the blanket to fit into the frame...

... and finally I sewed the pieces together, and continued with the granny pattern:

Believe it or not, this whole process lasted until February, and at that time I really wasn't happy with the way things were going: as you can see, the blanket started to ruffle when I continued with the granny pattern, and what bothered me even more: I didn't feel like making a third frame of little squares at all: more threads to weave in, more squares to join (oh, how I hated that!), and the deadline was coming closer and closer: the wedding would be on March 31st and I knew I never would make it until then if I really wanted to make a third frame of squares...

Wow, I just notice that this could have been a really thrilling story, but unfortunately I've already told (or showed) you the end, the happy end, before... but if you'd like to find out more details and see more pictures of how I've finished the blanket just in time, please come back on Friday for Part 3 of my "Making of... The Wedding Blanket"! :)

Making of... The Wedding Blanket (Part 1)

Thanks to the bad weather during this long Easter week-end, I was able to finish my "Making of... The Wedding Blanket" series. I've got lots of pictures to share, so I've prepared three posts, and I will publish them all within this week! But first of all, thank you for your lovely comments on my first picture of the finished Wedding Blanket! It's been a long way to get there, but I've tried to capture each step, so I hope you will enjoy the first part of my "Making of... The Wedding Blanket":

It all started with two things: 1) my friend's announcement that she'll be marrying in March and 2) an inspiration. I've found my inspiration over at Leah's Why didn't anyone tell me? when she finished her Giant Granny Square:

Thank you Leah for letting me borrow this picture! :)

As you can see, she added a frame of lots of little squares around her Giant Granny Square and it looks just stunning, don't you think?

Then I thought, why just use the smaller squares as a border? Wouldn't it be possible to interrupt the granny pattern several times with "frames" of smaller squares? I wanted to give it a try and planned with three frames of small squares - as you can see on the picture of my finished blanket, I only ended up with two frames, so somewhere along the way I must have changed my mind... :)

But let's start at the beginning. In October I've bought some balls of Schachenmayr Bravo (acrylic yarn),...

 ... grabbed a 3.5mm hook, and made a basic granny square:

Then it was time for the first frame, so I've made twelve little Sunburst Squares...

... and sewed them together...

... to form a frame:

Then, I sewed the two parts (the granny square and the frame) together:

Sewing the squares together was my least favorite part of the whole process, even more annoying than weaving in the ends, so I was glad to go back to "normal" and continue with the basic granny pattern for a few rounds:

Unfortunately I didn't write down when I finished this part and that piece, but I guess it must have been November now. In the next part of this "Making of..."-series the blanket will grow a little bit more and get the second frame.

Hope to see you on Wednesday for Part 2!

The Super-Secret Project... Revealed!

Finally the day has come, at last I can show you the result of my super-secret project I've been working on since last October! And here it is...

The Wedding Blanket!

Yesterday was my friend's wedding, and this blanket was my present for her. She knows the address of my blog, but I'm not sure if she's visiting - that's why I kept the whole project secret, just to make sure :)

Of course I've taken detailed pictures of the process as I was working along, but I haven't managed to prepare them for posting yet. I promise that I will write at least two, maybe more, "making of"-posts with lots of pictures to share the whole process with you, just as I would have normally done (if it hadn't been a super-secret project). For now, you can still go back to my Thursday Thoughts to see lots of little glimpses.

Have a nice and sunny Sunday everyone - and don't let them fool you! :)