September 17, 2019

I made the first flower square and first solid square yesterday morning when the patterns were released. The patterns were simple, well written, and fun! I think I am really going to enjoy this CAL.

This morning I organized my SSDK scraps, neatening up the balls and putting them into one of the bins / drawers in the wicker unit in the family room. I had been keeping them in the organza bags from Wool Warehouse orders in one of the storage ottomans but I think this will keep them much neater.

I’ve decided to edge in Graphite but I only have one skein of that in stash -- I’ll need to order more eventually but I’ll do the rest in scraps. I guess I won’t be doing this join-as-you-go since I’ve already put the graphite final round on the second square.

I am thinking I might do 9 x 8 so I’ll need to do 36 of the flower squares plus 36 of the solid.

October 6, 2019

I made 14 squares this week (!) so now I’m all caught up with this CAL. I am loving the random colors for this scrappy blanket.

October 27, 2019

It’s the day before flower square #4 is to be released and I’ve finished my four #3 Cosmos squares just in time. (Along with the four solid squares for this part.) I’m almost out of the Graphite.

November 1, 2019

I was thinking today about where I would like to donate this blanket when it is finished. I have an overabundance of blankets so I really do not need to keep it. Earlier in the year I donated a big pile to the Soldier’s Home in Holyoke, but they have mostly older gentlemen veterans living there and this is a rather feminine design. So my other ideas were Project Linus or the Welcome Blanket project. They prefer 40” x 60” blankets and 40” x 40” respectively. My squares are 6.5”, so 6 across would be almost exactly 40” with a small border.

I’m also going back to work full time in a few weeks. Rather than doing the full 72 square blanket as I planned, I could finish it up before the 18th at half that size. Then I could do the second half some time in the future with the rest of my scraps. This means I will make 3 each of squares 4 & 5, along with 6 more solid squares. Since I’m running out of Graphite, I’ll switch to Black for these last 12 squares, plus the join and border. I’ve added a layout diagram for how I plan to arrange the squares.

November 7, 2019

I’ve finished 3 of the week 4 Hydrangea squares and 3 of the solid squares, all with black borders. I think it will look fine with the mixed grey and black borders. 6 more squares left!

November 9, 2019

The last three solid squares are done (with black borders), now I just have to do three of the fifth flower square (which will be released on the 11th).

After that I’ll block, join, and put on a very simple border (to keep it from being much bigger than the 40” square preferred by Welcome Blanket). I’ll do the surface slip stitch join in black, followed by a three-round border, also in black:

1. hdc
2. sc in the third loop
3. reverse sc

November 14, 2019

All the squares are done! I enjoyed the Primula square a lot. Time to choose a layout.

December 1, 2019

I finished the blanket this morning and I’m very happy with how it came out. In the end, I didn’t have enough black yarn to do the border I planned, so I just did two rounds of sc, the second as back post.

The CAL goes on without me and I’ll definitely revisit this in the future. I’d love to make a second blanket with the remaining square patterns.