A few years ago I began a very tedious journey with this blanket that lasted about 11 months! I had wanted to make a granny square blanket for a long time and decided to start with a smaller one for my daughter. I suppose it is telling that I have not attempted to make another since. I do love the look of the granny, but the amount of thought I had to put into each square was mind boggling because I decided that no two squares would be alike.

On top of that, I didn’t sew in the ends as I went, so once it was assembled, I had to go back and to do that. Each square had four colors and there are ninety-six squares…so I spent a lot of time on sewing in ends!

Originally I had planned on doing a join-as-you-go type of construction, but I liked the random collage the pieces created and thought a single color around each one would create to much of a pattern. So I ended up doing a simple slip stitch join in white and I really like the quilted look of it all.

The slip stitch join was also more forgiving. When you look at the squares up close, you can see that they are not all the exact same size…keeping your tension exactly the same over the course of a year, is difficult. And blocking acrylic yarn is pointless.

But I have to say, it has held up very well over the last two years. It is kept at the foot of her bed and is washed regularly, so it gets a lot of abuse and there have been no issues. I used cheap yarn because of the color palette, so there is some pilling going on, but other than that, it looks like new.

Of course Ruby J picked out all the colors. At the time we called it a My Little Pony inspired throw, but it is hard to see that now. I finished it off with a rainbow border and a shell edge. Overall, I think it is beautiful and she absolutely loves it. In my head, I imagine her giving it to her daughter, the way I gave her the lady bug blanket my grandmother knitted me when I was her age. I love that about yarn work ❤

Lately, I have been toying with the idea of another, but this time I want to do a hexagon version. But just revisiting this one and remembering all the insanity, I might not!

Happy Thursday!

xoxo