My original plan was to make an entirely different blanket. I started out making this 3-color Baby Blanket, but I didn’t like the pattern stitch. It may have been just my execution of it, but it buckled and bowed, and I didn’t like the way it looked or layed, so I switched to this one, borrowing the color inspo and layout from that first one.

I didn’t have quite the same aqua blue though, so it doesn’t have quite the same feel. I think that aqua really makes it for me. This one came out nicely, but it didn’t quite “scratch my itch” for that color combo, which means that I’m not yet done with it in my mind. I still feel like I want to make that other blanket, or something closer to it.

If I look past all that though, and take this one on its own, it really is quite a nice blanket. I think it turned out well. I do like the color combo (even without the aqua!). It’s very soft, I like the lines of the eyelets, and it lays nice and flat and square, which is something that I often have trouble with.

Here are some of the particulars:
I used the larger hook for all except the crab stitch edging.

As I was doing a 6 x 6 grid instead of 7 x 7 (36 motifs total instead of 49), I did an extra eyelet round on each to make them a little bit larger. My blocks measured 6” square instead of 5”.

I seamed the blocks together using this method: How to Join Granny Squares with Invisible Seam, which is kind of like a running stitch, as opposed to a whip stitch, right sides together, through the back (ws) loops. I recently found this method, and I really like it, as it’s very flat & invisible, on both sides. The only thing that I don’t like about it is the way it leaves holes at the intersections. But in this case, I think it looks fine, as it continues the line of the corner holes of the motifs, running diagonally out from the centers.

For the border, I worked 2 rounds of each color in sc, with 3 sts in each corner, and turning after every round. I then finished off with 1 round of crab stitch, from the right side, with the smaller hook, placing one stitch in each sc, with no extras at the corners.

Abandoned Barber Pole Edging:
My original vision for the edging was to do a barber pole type stitch using all 3 colors. I tried a couple of methods without success, as they both caused the edge to buckle. I tried this method first, from the Purple Poncho: How to Crochet Chain Loop Edging In Three Colors. This uses a slip stitch & ch-6. It looked ok, but in addition to buckling, it also kind of flopped to the front a little bit, which I thought was maybe because of the slip stitches, and it also stood a little bit tall and flat, which maybe made it top heavy? I don’t know, but it wasn’t very satisfactory for this particular project, so I ripped it out.

I tried this method next, from Nana’s Crafty Home: Candy Cane Crochet Border in 3 Colors Tutorial. This one uses a sc & chain 5, which looked a little better, as it sat up on top of the edge, and was a little plumper and more rope-like, but it still buckled. This is the one that I have the picture of here. I neglected to take a picture of the first attempt.

At this point I decided to abandon the whole idea and switched to the crab stitch. I think the barber pole edging would look really nice on a project where it didn’t buckle, like a smaller circumference maybe. It’s also very fiddly and time consuming, so a smaller circumference would be a lot more manageable for that aspect as well!