15/12/2014 - all done, and I love it! It felt like the border was going to take forever, especially as those long rounds just got longer and longer. I don’t think I’d do such a big border again. I missed off the very last round. There should have been 2 rounds of Claret to finish, but as I wanted to use Claret in the edging, I decided to cut it down to 1. Lucy’s pretty edging was actually 4 rounds, but I just couldn’t face doing 4 more. I did the last 2 rounds, using Gold (round 3) and Claret. I’m glad I did the edging, it finishes it off nicely.

08/12/2014 - I successfully joined my squares using a continuous JAYG using an excellent tutorial from Crochet Cabana. Tomorrow I’ll start my humungous border. I used Copper to do my join and used 99g. I should have enough left for the Copper round in the border.

07/12/2014 - the more I think about it, the more I like the idea of a 9 square blanket. I wanted to do a very deep border so I will join my 9 squares, then use Lucy’s final colour sequence for the border, which I’ll work in the pattern of the rounds of the giant granny squares.

I’m going to join my squares with Copper, partly because this is a very autumnal blanket and the colour is perfect, partly because it looks fine with all the outer rounds of the squares, and partly because I’ve used less of the Copper than any other colour :) I’m quite surprised at how much of the first pack is left. These are the quantities I’ve used for the squares:

grape 81g
claret 79g
rose pink 78g
denim 67g
khaki 86g
raspberry 77g
gold 76g
meadow 81g
spice 69g
magenta 71g
petrol 74g
violet 83g
camel 63g
lime 66g
copper 53g

06/12/2014 - I laid my 7 completed squares out on my bed to get an idea of how big my blanket is going to be. It will be huge! I think 9 squares would make a good-sized blanket for a double bed. I’m still going with 12 squares though - I want this to be the cosiest blanket it can be :)

05/12/2014 - I’ve completed half the squares and am starting to get really excited about this blanket now, as I have no idea what the end result is going to look like and I can’t wait to find out! I had a week out to finish my big ripple blanket, but will be making a concerted effort to get the squares done. Lucy will be publishing her 6th sequence on Sunday, which will give me the sequences for my final two squares.

I’m trying to decide what colour to use to join all my squares and am leaning towards Claret or Lime. I also have to decide what to do for the border. I’m tempted to do a completetly OTT border and do something like a round of granny stripe in each colour. I bought two packs, so should have plenty of wool as doing half the squares has taken me through about half of the first pack.

21/11/2014 - the first 2 squares are completed and I love them! I was surprised at how different the second square looked from the first. For some reason, I’d assumed that having used the same sequence, but reversed, the 2 squares would look similar. They don’t! I’d been thinking that I’d have to place my ‘pairs’ far away from each other so I didn’t have 2 similar squares next to each other, but that’s not going to be a problem at all :)

Each square is 20” and I’ll add another round at the end, when I join them. I haven’t decided yet what colour to use to join them as I don’t know what colour all the outer rounds are going to be yet. If there’s a colour that ties them all together, I’ll use that or I might use a completely different colour like walnut or parchment.

I also want to put a really deep border on, maybe as much as 6” deep.

19/11-14 - I’ve changed my mind about doing a ripple. I’m going to do giant granny squares, instead. I’ve found a great chart and the pattern has 14 colour changes, just right for Lucy’s colour scheme :) I’ve done part of a square as a gauge and reckon that each square will be around 22”-23”. 12 squares should see a good-sized blanket.

I think I’ll do 2 squares for each stripe sequence that Lucy releases. The first square will be 1-15 and the second will reverse the colour order. Hopefully, that will balance out the colour usage a bit.

10/11/14 - starting chain of 297 that should (she said, hopefully) give me a blanket width of approx 72”