Update-4/8/18–
Hooray! Finished! Quite happy with it. Super soft, and it’s going to be very warm. I was surprised to see the odd yet interesting stripe in the midst of my blanket, given that it’s the same color and dye lot, but I guess I had a mutant skein! No worries, it adds to the fun. Oh, and I know I have many detractors, but after I change skeins and before I weave in the ends, I do knot the two ends of the yarn. I don’t do it on most things I make, but when it comes to things like blankets that will see lots of washing and lots of wear and tear, my deep-seated fear of unraveling items takes over. :) Onto the next one…
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I’ve finally found my groove with this pattern (fingers crossed)! It’s not really difficult, but like all pattern repeats, if you treat it too mindlessly, you’re bound to knit where you should purl and/or miss a row. After a couple of errors, I decided to take a few precautions and got prolific with my stitch markers. I put markers to not only mark my first and last three knit border stitches, but I also placed markers between all the pattern repeats in the row (every 9 stitches). It’s made my work a lot easier.

The yarn is working up nicely, softer than the average acrylic. I’m using a discontinued color, I think (probably why it was on sale for $2 a skein at Michael’s), and it was the only Softee Chunky color of which I could find enough yarn (okay, there was a horrific orange, and I didn’t want that at all). Oh, word to the wise, as a few had mentioned this on Bernat’s site—the pattern states that you need two skeins of yarn. This is true IF you are purchasing the Softee Chunky that comes in 400g skeins. If you’re like me and found the Softee Chunky in 100g skeins, obviously, you’re going to need eight.

Anyway, I’m looking forward to posting more pics when I finish this, which will hopefully be before winter ends!