02-Jan-2022

A few days ago I noticed some photos on Instragram of the tiny squares made from this pattern. I’ve long been a fan of Tinna and when I looked at all the gorgeous projects made from this pattern, I knew I had to purchase it. And I have just the yarn - mini skeins of Durable Coral, gifted to me by my friend Julie.

I love the story of this pattern - Amma means grandma - my mother was Memaw to her grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Memaw passed away in March 2021. She loved crafting - made lots of blankets and baby sets on little square looms. Even though she did not crochet, she always enjoyed hearing about what I was making and seeing pictures of my projects. I know she would have loved this pattern so as I make it, I will think of her and all that she lovingly gave to me, my family, and all who crossed her path.

18-Jan-2022

I finished my first Amma Lola square - love the way it turned out! It isn’t blocked yet, will be approximately 10 inches square when I block and finish it - which is about the size of Tinna’s squares in the pattern. Not sure how I managed to do that!

26-Feb-2022

I’ve finished one of each square; I love them all. This is a great portable project.

I’m glad I listened to the videos, clarified a lot of questions I had about joining rounds. I thought I’d use the charts more than the written instructors (my usual mode) but I’m finding just the opposite.

29-Oct-2022

I’ve made 20 squares so far (4 of each type). I
am really enjoying this project, especially figuring out the colors to use for each square.

I have learned to crochet over all yarn ends as I go, completely weaving in and trimming any ends as I go. (Didn’t do this it first so I have about 8 squares that need a session with a yarn needle, so am slowly working on them between crocheting new squares.) I’ll put together some kind of blocking board soon - the main thing is to block all squares to the same size before I start any joining. But - with 48 squares as my goal, I’ve still got lots of time to figure out best way to block.

30-Oct-2022

I played yarn chicken on one of the squares & lost. I thought I had enough of a different color B for the 8-petal rose part but ran out. So I am doing it over with a mini-skein that’s almost completely full, weighing before & after, with my scale set to grams.
Before: 15 grams
After: 6 grams
So the 8-petal rose part requires at least 9 grams

26-Nov-2022

I have made 30 squares so far. I even designed my own, the Amma Janet square, in honor of my mother (MeMaw). Six squares also means I will need to make the same number of each for my 48-square blanket. At 30 squares, I am over half-way and thoroughly enjoying the journey.

I bought a nice blocking kit a few weekends ago and am ready to start cleaning up my craft room so I have somewhere to actually do the blocking.

17-Dec-2022

I’m well over halfway on the blocks: completed 34, have 14 to go. I calculated how much of the two main colors I’ve used and ordered some additional skeins of the dark grey. It’s been almost a year since I started thus & have loved every minute. I want to complete it by August 2923 so I can take it with me to NC in September as a gift.

01-Jan-2023

I’ve now completed 40 squares so decided to start blocking today. Unfortunately, my gauge has changed dramatically since I first started the project even though I am using the same hook & same yarn. I measured all the blocks yesterday and they range in size from 9” square to 10” square; I’m blocking them all to 10 inches. The larger one are the latest ones I’ve completed which indicates I’m much more relaxed than I was when I began the project. With a big blanket like this, I think things will even out, especially if I’m careful in the final layout to scatter the very relaxed ones throughout. I may experiment though & go down a hook size in the next square to see if that makes a difference.

21-Jan-2023

I finished square #48 today and marked this project 75% done. I am well on the way with blocking the squares, only 12 left.

I already made a layout - not each individual square - but a layout that shows where each of the six types are placed. I’ll work out specific square placement when I lay them out on the bed.

I estimate with work remaining to join squares and add the border, I’ll be finished in March or April.

28-Jan-2023

I finished blocking all the squares yesterday. Then today I laid out all the squares in the pattern that I had decided. I just used the diagram I had created and took my time deciding which square to put in each spot. After I had everything laid out, I had to swap about half a dozen or so for a more pleasing color arrangement - it was actually easier than I thought it might be.

Since I can’t do the joining on the bed where I laid out the squares, I stacked each row separately (with the right-most square on top of each stack) and loosely tied the squares together with strands of black yarn. The squares in Row 1 (the row at the top) are tied together with one strand of black yarn; the squares in Row 2 are tied together with two strands of black yarn; and so on with squares in Row 8 (the bottom row) tied together with eight strands of black yarn.

I don’t know if I’ll start the actual joining today or wait till tomorrow. It’s going to be a bit tricky to figure out a place to do the actual fastening work.

30-Jan-2023

I did start the joining day before yesterday (Saturday) and was so excited about seeing the squares become a blanket that I finished all the joining yesterday evening. Thanks to Tinna’s excellent video on joining the squares, it was quite relaxing - although I did have one slight boo-boo, but I easily corrected it.

To keep this huge blanket as manageable as possible, this is the order I used for the joins.

Step 1 - I did horizontal joins and made four 2-row sections:

• Joined Row 1 to Row 2 to make R1R2 section
• Joined Row 3 to Row 4 to make R3R4 section
• Joined Row 5 to Row 6 to make R5R6 section
• Joined Row 7 to Row 8 to make R7R8 section

Step 2 - I did horizontal joins to make two 4-row sections (by joining the 2-row sections together):

• Joined Row 2 to Row 3 to make R1R2R3R4 section
• Joined Row 6 to Row 7 to make R5R6R7R8 section

Step 3 - I did the last horizontal join to make the blanket from the 4-row sections:

• Joined Row 4 to Row 5 to make BLANKET!

Step 4: - Did all vertical joins.
When I laid out the blanket to start the vertical joins (with all the squares dangling like acrobats on a tightrope), I saw something was screwed up on the last squares of the bottom half of the blanket and was afraid I was going to have to rip out a lot of my work. But I realized that all I’d done is join the last square of Step 3 to the wrong square. So to correct I just frogged the stitches from the last join that were wrong (only one square’s worth!) and redid the join so that it was correct. I’m very glad I used the black yarn as markers to designate row numbers, it really helped me find and correct the problem.

This morning before I started work I had to do a symbolic start to the border - probably did about 100 stitches. I may not get much time to work on it during this week but I can say I am in the final stretch!

25-Feb-2023

I just started Round 10 of the border so that means (counting current Round 10), I only have four rounds to go! I’m close enough to the end to enter yarn used amounts, something I usually don’t do in Ravelry. I’m doing it this time because I may want to another blanket sometime so having totals here could prove helpful in the future.

The Catona amounts are accurate as I’ve kept all the yarn bands. The Durable Coral amounts are a guess- I’m guessing 12-15 grams each square, 48 squares for roughly 700 grams - which is 35 of the 20-gram mini skeins. This is about right, considering remaining inventory of my mimi skeins.

Summary:

• 19 100-gram skeins of Scheepjes Catona, 130 Old Lace (cream)
• 15 50-gram skeins of Scheepjes Catona, 501 Anthracite (grey)
• Approximately 35 20-gram mini skeins of Durable Coral, variety of colors

These two yarns have worked together well. The Durable Coral is a little heavier than the Scheepjes Catona but not enough to be noticeable the way I was using it in this pattern. Catona is described as a fingering weight and Coral as a sport weight. In my opinion, I would describe them both as a sport weight. They were both wonderful to work with and perfect for this pattern.

12-Mar-2023

I finished today. It’s beautiful.

I’ll block it at some point - although I really don’t think I have to - it looks fine because I blocked all the squares before I joined them. I ended up with just a few yards left on the last skein of Color A (the cream color, Catona 130 Old Lace) but I have plenty of skeins left of both the Catona main colors. So now I’ll have enough to start a smaller Amma blanket to keep for myself - or do another one of Tinna’s patterns.