The real ta-da moment!

Right then, here's what I really came here to tell you...

I have finally finished this beast of a blanket!

PHEW!

This one was not quite the labour of love which the last one was...

I started this project at the end of November 2011 as a present for my (now 7 year old) nephew Sam. His bedroom gets freezing in winter and he particularly liked the blanket I had crocheted for myself last summer. My sister picked the colours for his blanket (I suspect a Spiderman theme) as it is going to be a surprise for him. Every time they've come round I've stashed it away in the cupboard.

And so off I went. Crocheting slowly.

Very slowly...

I  n  c  r  e  d  i  b  l  y   s  l  o  w  l  y   i  n   f  a  c  t  .  .  .

It ended up taking me so long to do that I started to find it quite a chore rather than a fun project. All the time I was horribly aware of how long it was taking me and how he could really use this on his bed given how cold it was. And now it's almost summer and I've finished it - how's that for timing?!

This is more of a  ta-da moment spoken through gritted teeth really! 

I'm not sure why it took me so long to finish. It may have been because I'd only really just completed one, so it wasn't a 'new' project... but I suspect that it was mostly the blocks of colour. Each colour block was made up of five rows, and so I was much less inclined to work to the end of a row when I knew that it didn't mean changing to a new colour.

The pattern was the same as that used for the previous blanket - one I found on Ravelry. If you look me up (my username's BizBaz) then you should be able to find details on both projects, including the pattern. The wool I used for both projects is Stylecraft Special DK, which is lovely and soft, machine washable and comes in a really wide range of colours.

For the edging I did scalloping again but made these tighter and smaller - with only five treble crochets instead of the seven I used on the last blanket (UK terminology). I also went straight into the scalloping instead of having a couple of lines of dc. My nephew's at an age where some things can be perceived as too 'girly' so I didn't want to make the border too fussy.

Despite my griping I am actually happy with the end product! I'm hoping he's going to really like it and will keep it forever. I'd like it to be something he can pass on to his kids eventually, explaining that it was made by his mad old Auntie.