Sept 14, 2010 -- I was inspired to make this after seeing a gorgeous granny-square afghan in the first Nanny McPhee movie. It had muted colors mixed with very bold colors. With that blanket in mind, I’ve selected 21 colors for mine that blend & POP! (There are 2 neutral colored yarns for the borders and 19 bolder colors for the rounds.)

I plan to make mine a twin-sized blanket--larger than the baby blanket described in Alicia Paulson’s pattern.

I’m also altering the pattern by adding one more round of Large Cluster (LC) stitches to each square. Just wanted to make them a little bit larger than Alicia’s version.

And finally, I’m joining the squares to one another as I make them -- rather than keeping them in a pile until I’ve made them all. Lucy--over at the Attic24 blog--shared her simple technique for doing this.

September 18, 2010 -- I’ve completed 19 squares. They all have different colored centers--one for each of my 19 bold accent colors.

August 28, 2011 -- I’m still working on this blanket. Got slowed down by the arrival of our beautiful baby girl… but am managing to pick up the needle for a few minutes here & there. Still love this pattern and the colors I’ve chosen for it.

January 25, 2013 -- I’ve begin working on this blanket again. Still love the color & pattern and that’s helped me return to it. I’ve decided to make the blanket smaller than my original plan. I’m half-way through my original design (96 sunbursts) and the blanket is almost the size of a thrw blanket - think I had wanted it to be twin bed size. I think I’ll add a row or 2 more, and then add 3 columns of sunbursts, and finish with a border.

February 17, 2014 -- I finished! This took 4 years of persistence and provided a lot of stress relief for me. I began this afghan while applying to adopt. Three months later I became a mom - and crocheted this through my little girl’s infancy and toddler years. I took a break for a year - crocheting an afghan for my daughter - and then came back to finish the edge of this blanket. 

I had intended to make it larger when I started, and had worked the color pattern for each square out on paper. In reality - it would have been too big and too heavy. The finished blanket is 10 squares wide and 16 squares long - 41 inches x 67 inches. It’s plenty big and very warm.

Before I started the border, I used beige yarn and followed instructions from the Bunny Mummy blog for straightening the side of a granny square blanket: http://bunnymummy-jacquie.blogspot.com/2011/06/how-to-mak...

Then, I discovered another tip for getting a blanket’s edges to be very straight - go into every stitch around the edge with a slip stitch before adding a decorative border. After a few attempts, I found that tight slip stitches were too rigid and made the blanket pucker. I used beige yarn, switched to a larger hook, and made my stitches looser. Voila - a nice straight edge - the original wavy edges ironed out.

Then I added 2 more rows of beige yarn. The first was all single crochet stitches and the second row was half-double crochet stitches.

The green vine.
I found the green leaf edge pattern as a pictorial pattern with some helpful comments from readers. It’s here :: http://clubmasteric.ru/shemi-vasanie-kruchkom/uzori-kruch.... 
I made the leaves by picking up (YO = yarn over) twice in the first row of edging, YO twice in next row of edging, YO twice in third row of edging, YO twice in second row of edging, YO twice in first row of edging - then YO and pull the last YO through all of the loops. 

Then make 10 single crochet stitches in green between leaves. Some leaves on the corners are separated by a few more or less than 10 stitches. I changed the stitch count to position a leaf six stitches from both sides of the corners.

The final three rows are in beige. They  are Rows 1 & 2 from the Star Stitch pattern found here ::
http://www.garnstudio.com/lang/us/pattern.php?id=5997&amp...

ROW 1 (RS): Pick up 1 st in each of the next ch 5, beg in 2nd ch from hook, make a YO and pull through all 6 sts, ch 1 to make a hole over the 6 sts, * pick up 1 st in the hole, pick up 1 st in the side of the last of the 6 sts, pick up 1 st in same ch as the last of the 6 sts was picked up in, 1 st in each of the next 2 ch = 6 sts on hook, make a YO and pull through all 6 sts, ch 1 , repeat from-. Work 1 hdc in last ch. Turn.

ROW 2 (WS): ch 2 (= hdc), work 2 hdc in every “star hole”, finish row with 1 hdc in last st. Turn. There are now 19 stars on row and 1 hdc in each side.

Then I worked a border around as follows:
Work 1 sc in the edge, then ch 2, skip 2, continue with * 1 sc in edge, ch 2, skip 2, repeat until first sl st. NOTE: on the corners I ch 3, skip 2.