Birthday present yarn and pattern from my husband, boys and Mum. I am so happy, and I couldn’t wait to cast on!
Definitely keep the ball bands stuffed inside the balls. Misread the pattern at the very beginning and swapped both the first two colours of chart B1 around. Mainitained this for symmetry on chart B2. I know no-ne else will notice, and I couldn’t face ripping the whole thing out by the time I noticed. It doesn’t bug me too badly…
Crocheted the steek using Eunny Jang’s tutorial. Super easy: very easy instructions. My go to place for steeking instructions! I’m not sure why this needs reinforcement for the steek at all, given the yarn involved, but since I haven’t done a crocheted steek (or an unreinforced one) yet, I thought I would learn the new technique and do as instructed! It’s very neat. I used a 3mm hook, and some dark grey Regia 4-ply.
Have steamed the back, and now having to do some housework before I pick it up again later!

For reference: using a 3mm hook and super wash is NOT the way to do this steek. I reworked it (slightly further in, obviously) with Yuglet and a 2mm hook, and now it is not coming apart any more. Just so you know. And I was quite cross with myself. But it’s fine now!

It is a good job I love this project, because each round of the border averages out at 35 minutes per rond, and so just the border works out at about 33 hours of knitting. I garter stitch. Bt I do love it, so it is going, slowly. I think I have been at it for about three weeks now, and just starting in the shaela rotunda on the decrease side. I’m also not looking forward to the I-cord bind off, but I keep telling myself it will be small fry in comparison to the rest of the blanket, and I really want to get cosy underneath the beautiful finished object!

I ran out of a couple of colours in the decreases down the reverse of the border. Fortunately, you can’t see on the right side that I finished off with a slightly darker shade rather than white. It was a bit once bitten twice shy (and frankly any excuse…) for the I-cord border. I probably have enough, and if I decide I want it on in future, I will add it, but for now I have left it off for reasons of sanity if nothing else. I found it very hard to see where I had picked up sts in the steeked edges, which made it time consuming (at best) and repetitive (on the first side…and again…), so overall, the past couple of weeks has been more put down than picked up. I could have finished this a lot sooner, had I not used any excuse not to!
But I absolutely love it, and I a, looking forwa to snuggling under it once it dries. Thank god for blocking wires: these have made the last stages markedly less painful than they might have been!