First Attempt

Starting chain 156 + 7 =163
Stitch count 156 + 5 = 161

This gave me a width of 44” approx and I was aiming for no more than 40” as I knew this blanket had a border and I wanted a 40 x 40 inch blanket approx. As I am worried about having enough yarn for the blanket I’ll need to start again with a smaller width.

I measured the length of 12 stitches, as this blanket is worked in multiples of 12. This measured around 3” approx, given my current width of 44” approx I have decided to take of two multiples of 12 - so 24 stitches/chains.

Second Attempt - Start of blanket

Starting chain 132 + 7 = 139
Stitch count 132 + 5 = 137

I was able to save some of my work from my first attempt :) which meant I undid row 2 and only had to undo a little of row 1 which saves me time. First I worked out how many stitches I needed to undo, this was easy to work out as I took the old stitch count number and took away the new stitch count number to get my answer. I then checked my work and I had the correct stitch count as well as ending with the 7 tr (dc to me, I use American notes) that row 1 ends with . Once I had double checked this was correct all I had to do was carefully undo the chain stitches I no longer needed. This is a well known cheat with info on how to do this easily found online. Yes it meant a little yarn wastage from the chain part but I’d prefer that to having to do row 1 again.

From this point on I can carry on as per pattern, so I re-added row 2 and continued on :).

24/06/2016 - Finished the first part which is row 1 to 12. After this you keep doing repeats of row 3 - 12 until you have the required height you are looking for.

Quick measure of row 3-12 is just under 5”, so as I’m looking for 40” height approx. I’ll be doing 7-8 repeats depending on how it measures up at the end.

My Records for as I go along:

1st Repeat - R3, R4, R5, R6, R7, R8, R9, R10, R11, R12.

Finished 1st ball of Mint yarn - End of Round 9 First Repeat (19 rows)

2nd Repeat - R3, R4, R5, R6, R7, R8, R9, R10, R11, R12.

3rd Repeat - R3, R4, R5, R6, R7, R8, R9, R10, R11, R12.

Finished 2nd ball of Mint yarn - Middle of Round 9 Third Repeat

4th Repeat - R3, R4, R5, R6, R7, R8, R9, R10, R11, R12.

5th Repeat - R3, R4, R5, R6, R7, R8, R9, R10, R11, R12.

Finished 3rd ball of Mint yarn - end of Round 7 Fifth Repeat.

6th Repeat - R3, R4, R5, R6 and R7.

I finished up at round 7 because this gave the same design as the start of the blanket. If you think of the shapes as diamonds then I finished off with a whole diamond and half a diamond inbetween. I checked the start of my blanket and it starts exactly the same, with the half diamond followed with the whole diamond inbetween. This meant stopping half way through a repeat but I always knew this could happen as I was working to a certain size, 40 x 40 inches approx.

When I realised I’d just finished a whole diamond on the last repeat I knew it was a good time to measure the length, as I knew when starting the 6th repeat I was close to the length I wanted. It was almost 40” as it was hard to be exact as the blanket easily stretches and I wasn’t able to leave it flat. I knew if I carried on I’d be over 40 inches and as we were aiming for 40 x 40” I knew it was time to stop. The blanket looked like a good size and as the design was looking the same both top and bottom it was the perfect place to stop too.

After this I started the instructions for the border, which starts with using the same colour yarn to go around the edge. Border completed and I love how it’s finished it off, the pink shades really add to this blanket and I love it even more now.

WILL UPDATE WITH MORE PHOTOS ASAP!