What better time than Valentine's week to post about finishing a blanket I've dubbed "Sweetheart Blanket".
So that's two blankets now on the books in my quest to burn through some yarn stash this year.
Also crochet related... In January I decided to join again with a Block-A-Month Crochet-A-Long (BAMCAL, for short) group on Ravelry. The idea behind this group is that you crochet along with others two different blocks each month (that are picked out by the moderators of the group), and by the end of the year you've made enough blocks to make a large blanket. I think it was 2017 that I joined this group and crocheted my first block for my "blanket of many blocks". It is now 2024 and I have taken stock and see that I've made a total of seven blocks in all this time. In case I've lost you, let me do the math...
That's an average of one-block-a-year!
Now, a lap blanket is made up 12 squares, a throw is 20 squares, and a full size blanket would be made up of around 30 squares. Clearly, I need to rethink this project, as I will not live long enough to complete a blanket at the rate I am going on this.
Fortunately for me, I've learned some things in my 7 years of slow-poking my way to a blanket made of various and diverse squares.
While I love the idea of crochet-a-longs, I have questionable follow-through. What I love is the camaraderie and encouragement one gets when doing something as part of a group. What I don't love is making something (anything, really) that someone else has picked out. So, just a month after declaring I was rejoining the 2024 BAMCAL, I'm parting from the pack and going my own way on this. Fortunately, the group has a thread where participants can share their "non-cal" squares, so that will allow me to be in on some of the fun. And no one seems to mind if anyone completes a blanket made up entirely of the monthly squares, so it appears I can still hang out with these peeps and do my own thing to some degree.
I've already created a file on Ravelry of square patterns that look like ones I'd enjoy making, and ought to work well with the colors I've chosen to work with.
Currently, I'm working on a square called Sage Advice (which, actually, was one of the January BAMCAL squares):
It looks like a mess, and like something that would be tedious to do. While I don't love this part of a project, if I put on the right mindset, I can find sewing in ends almost as meditative as crocheting. It's all a part of the process.
Now, that I've gotten some clarity about how to finish this blanket-of-many-squares project, wish me well on the follow-through and execution!
