The giftees loved this! They said they’d never seen such a lovely and unique looking blanket :) win!

6/11/14: only 10 rounds left to go, then the cabled border. Currently at 652 sts per round. No wonder this is taking forever!

6/3/14: I’m on Round 8 of the final branch pattern - so close I can taste it! I’ve used approximately 1,080 yds so far, and i’m at about 600 sts/rnd.

5/6/14: CO and worked through round 16 of 1st main branch repeat.

5/7/14: Worked Rounds 17-20 of 1st main branch repeat

5/13/14: Haven’t worked on this since the above date for a variety of reasons.. I thought the test was due tomorrow, so I knit my little fingers to the bone :) result: 3.65/8 leaves completed. Whew. I’m going to have to put some serious effort into finishing this by the deadline. This is going to be a bigger blanket than I realized. 50” square is quite large!
Apologies for he poor quality photo- I’ll upload better ones when I get the chance.