April 14, 2025

It’s now 8.5 years since I bought this kit and queued up this project!! I guess it’s time to get around to making it.

Color substitutions for the pattern instructions:

• Copper = Mint
• Daffodil = Fern
• Cardinal = Ice Blue
• Teal = Cascade
• Navy = Denim
• Cream = Cream
• Aqua = Aqua

Last time I made a Janie Crow pattern from a kit I sized down the crochet hook from the recommended and still ran out of yarn.

Swatches:

3.5mm hook, single crochet:

• 22st = 4.75” (should be 4”)
• 18.5 st = 4”
• 20 rows = 3.75” (should be 4”)
• 24 rows = 4.5”

3.25mm hook, double crochet:

• 22 st = 4.88”
• 18.5 st (should be 22) = 4”
• 10 rows = 4” (correct)

So, my row gauge is close, but my stitch gauge is off. I think I am going to use a 3.25mm where it says to use 4mm, and a 3mm where it says to use 3.5mm.

Tomorrow I will make one of the granny squares complete and see how close it is to 4.5”.

April 28, 2025

I have completed the 9 granny squares. I did the first one to test gauge and it was pretty much exactly 4.5” but it was a bit too stiff for my taste. I stayed with the 3.25/3.0mm hooks but loosened up my tension for the remaining 8 that I did assembly line style.

June 30, 2025

I did one octagon for all rounds as a test, then started the remaining assembly line. I stopped at round 4 (of 14) for the remaining 15 motifs.

March 17, 2026

It’s time to take this out of hibernation where it went when I decided to make C’s friend the Carrot Seedling Blanket, then succumbed to 3 complicated crochet-a-longs (CALs) on top of the usual holiday gifts and other smaller projects. It’s silly, but I’ve been feeling a little guilty for neglecting this blanket, probably because last year I had intended to concentrate more on my kits that I have had in my stash for years, but kept getting swept up in the new and shiny projects.

It’s funny that this pattern is having a bit of a spike in popularity among the TikTok and YouTube content creators. It’s not quite to the level of the 6-Day Star Blanket by Betty McKnit, but still very noticeable. I wonder if that influenced me to finally start it almost a year ago now? (They do call them influencers, after all, but am I that easily led?! )

April 12, 2026

I’m at the point of adding the fans to the octagon motifs. In this colorway, there’s not much difference between the Mint and the Ice Blue that they alternate between so the 16 ends per motif are arguably hard to justify. But I soldier on. Leaving all the ends hanging gives me the whillies so for five of them I went immediately to round 8 where the SC stitches bring them all together again and gave me a place to hide the ends, but for the remaining ten I’m doing the next fan on each of them in turn just for variety.

Had I to do it over, I might have chosen to do all the fans on each motif the same color and just alternated colors betwen the octagons, but it’s really not that slow when I get into a rhythm.

April 18, 2026

I finished round 8 on all 15 of the octagons and got half way through round 9 when I started getting bored. There’s a lot of SC rounds at the end and I’m not the speediest of crocheters. So, for the last 2 I abandoned assembly line and just continued on and finished the last 6 rounds before going on to the next. I may alternate between the two ways of doing it based on my mood. I may even go on to some of the half and quarter grannies if I feel like it. I’ve been ignoring my other projects in favor of this one, but I may even start something new since it’s been so long since I did.

The only round that is “tricky” on the remaining octagons is 12 where the points go to flat sides, and the issue there is just following the instructions that are in paragraph form. I’ve added them below in the Private Notes as a bullet list and in US terms which makes it go a lot faster.

June 4, 2026

Today is a milestone! I’ve finished all the motifs.

So. Many. Ends! But they’re all woven in.

Tomorrow is Friday, so maybe I’ll start blocking. I’ve blocked half the octagons and all the squares already.

I’m looking forward to starting the joining this weekend.

June 8, 2026

It’s Monday and the octagons and squares are all joined. Actually, I joined them twice -- first I joined them with a larger hook, as recommended in the pattern, but the motifs did not lie flat. I hadn’t woven in the ends, so it was easy to pull out the joins and try again. This time I used the same hook as the final round. It’s better but still not entirely flat. I’m afraid my gauge is loose, so I probably should have gone up more than .5mm from the center to the outer rounds. I did block everything, but I think I will block it yet again once the border is complete and I’ll try to pin the seams and steam them some more to try to get them to relax and leave enough space for the inner rounds so they don’t blouse.

It’s gorgeous though and I do love the colors. If I was planning to hang it on a wall, that would be different, but since it’s to hang on a blanket ladder or be used on the couch, it’s not that important that is doesn’t lie completely flat.

I really did want to get this done over the weekend but I want it to be as good as possible given how much work this has been. Did I mention? So. Many. Ends.

June 14, 2026

The joining was complete during the week and the border finished over the weekend. It’s not perfectly flat but it is done. I had to substitute Fern for Acqua in the border because I only had 14g left of the Acqua, plus there wasn’t much Fern in the blanket so I was happy to use it in the border to draw out the accent from the octagons.

Remaining yarn:

• Denim 71g
• Cascade 59g
• Cream 44g
• Ice Blue 43g
• Fern 42g
• Acqua 14g
• Mint 9g