December 25, 2022

I did the gauge swatch this morning while relaxing after opening Xmas gifts with the family. What a fun way to spend time on Xmas day! My swatch is exactly the right width with my 5.0mm Knitter’s Pride Tunisian hook.

I bought the most expensive version of the pattern/ad-free videos in order to support the creator, but the patterns will be free on her blog as well if that’s not in your budget.

January 8, 2023

I watched Arunima’s technique videos to get the idea, and, after a slow start, I finished the first square. Once I got the hang of it (and pulled back a few rows to fix a stitch I missed), it went faster but still not quickly. Hopefully I will get faster at these.

My yarn is sport weight, but my square still came out to 10” after blocking. (The pattern uses DK.)

February 18, 2023

I have just finished the second of the two Orange squares, which were fun though very Halloweeney on their own.

I do like this technique but I am very slow at it. It took me about 5 hours to do one 10” square. My method for reading the pattern is to screenshot the chart and open it in Mac Preview, where I insert a bright yellow horizontal line that is about the height of a row. I drag that line up to cover the row I just worked as I go. That works like a charm. Since I’m generally watching Netflix or YouTube as I crochet, I have my MacBook at hand anyway and it saves on printer ink.

I just finished most of my first skein of black, so roughly 4 squares from each black skein.

March 19, 2023

The first March square with the zig zags was the most challenging so far for some reason, but the one last week was super simple. I think this is going to be a striking blanket when it’s done.

April 16, 2023

I’ve just finished square #8 and I realized I was sometimes going into the wrong loops on the etss. That would explain why my “squares” were quite so short, and on this square, where I figured it out during the first repeat, the pattern in the top part is noticeably sharper.

Better late than never and the older squares still look fine.

September 24, 2023

I finished up to 11 as they came out but took a break since June. Now square 20 is out and I am very behind. As soon as I get caught up on my Temperature Blanket, I’ll try to catch up on these as well.

October 15, 2023

I’m getting there! I’ve done 5 more for a total of 16. I need to do 5 more before the 25th to be completely caught up, which is doable, though I need to be cautious because the Tunisian motion is tough on my shoulder and I don’t want to give myself a repetitive stress injury.

I am also caught up on my Temperature Blanket project as well.

October 28, 2023

I have finished square #23 so I am officially all caught up!

I watched the joining and border videos and I am considering making an attempt at doing the border in regular overlay mosaic since I am so slow at the Tunisian mosaic.

November 19, 2023

All of my squares are done and I’ve been experimenting with the join. I tried the single crochet join that Arunima demonstrated in her video, but I didn’t like the raised ridge on the front side and it didn’t cover up the contrast color edge stiches well enough, and two rows of surface slip stitches in addition to the join seems like too much work.

Instead, I tried hdc up the side, going into the vertical bar of the next stitch after the edge stitch and it covers up the contrast color edge stitches nicely. I did regular sc across the top and bottom. That seems like too much of a faff, though, as the Brits would say.

I’m going to wait until the join and border patterns are released on Wednesday before I start the join. I want to be sure that I end up with the right stitch count to do the mosaic border.

November 25, 2023

In the end, I went with the recommended join in the pattern. The color B does show up next to the join, but the blanket is such a riot of color, I decided it doesn’t bother me enough to justify all that surface slip stitch to hide it.

The join went fairly quickly and I completed it in one day. It’s nice to have a blanket now instead of a pile of squares!

I’m not thrilled with my choice of layout. The two Celestial squares (dark blue) don’t have enough contrast with the black and they draw the eye so it looks like a black hole. In hindsight, I wish I had gone with a random layout.

December 10, 2023

I started the border yesterday (Saturday), and have finished the first 3 black rounds. As with the join, I decided to go with the border pattern as written, though I’m sure the non-Tunisian mosaic would go faster (and not curl as much). But I’ve never done Tunisian in-the-round before, and I’ve never been one to back down from a challenge.

I did not get faster at this technique, so I suspect the 12 rounds of the border are going to take me a long, long time. My goal is to be done by the end of December, and since I’ll have some extra time off around the holidays (trying to use up vacation days that I can’t carry over plus the company shutdown between Christmas and New Year), that should be quite doable, even though this isn’t my only active project.

Now to decide what color to use for the pattern in the border. Tranquil (light turquoise) perhaps? I have enough of it and none of the Tranquil squares are right up against the border, plus it’s a nice, high-contrast color.

December 23, 2023

I finished the border yesterday, I did go with the Tranquil color, and it looks nice though is in desperate need of blocking. It was a bit of a challenge but now I can say I’ve done Tunisian in the round with a double-ended hook.

The second half of the border went much quicker than the first after I received my ChiaoGoo Interchangeable Tunisian Hooks in the mail. Merry Christmas to me! My Knitters Pride, relatively inexpensive set I’ve been using since 2016 are the reason why this project has been such a slog I now realize! The tip of the hook is too rounded, so it was a struggle to get it under the front bar of the stitch.

Note to self: Invest in good tools! And thanks to Toni Lipsey for her comprehensive review of the available hooks. It was on her advice that I went with the ChiaoGoo, but it also made sense since I own (neglected) ChiaoGoo interchangeable knitting needles and the cords work with both. If I had only realized this simple thing earlier in the year, I would have saved myself hours and hours (and had more fun) while making this blanket.

December 26, 2023

I just finished steam blocking the fourth side of the blanket. It took yesterday and today because I didn’t have a big enough space to do all four sides at the same time, and because it was Christmas day and we had important celebrating to do!

It feels very appropriate that I started this project exactly one year ago with swatching on Christmas day. There are a few things I would have done differently, but I’m glad I stuck with it.