April 15, 2019

This morning I went through my Stylecraft Special DK stash and chose these greens and teals, plus a few neutrals. The colors remind me of sea glass.

Square 1, Star Portal by Stephanie Ware.

Using a 4 mm hook, the square ended up 9”. My plan is to make 2 of each pattern for 24 total squares.

April 22, 2019

I did the second square, Cornered Cable, in Parchment and Pistachio. I really enjoyed this square! I’ve done lots of cables before, so those were simple, but I’ve never done them in a c2c format -- very clever design. The “square” really wanted to be an oblong, but I’ll be blocking these so they’ll work themselves out.

I found the hdc2tog to be a bit bulky. Next square I will use an invisible hdc2tog.

May 6, 2019

Last week I made the third square, Twisted Times, which was fine. It was a little over-complicated for the rather subtle texture effect, in my opinion. But the pattern was well-written and easy to follow.

Today I finished the first of the Lana Blossom Squares, which is pattern #4. It was a very pretty and straight-forward square, my only complaint is the way she sometimes explicitly tells you to make a stitch in a chain space and sometimes she just says “sc in the next 20 sts” and that includes the ch sps as a stitch. The photo made it clear, but I worry that beginners would be confused.

May 14, 2019

I finished the first Pasha Square today (which is square #5). It was very fun to do but it is huge compared to the others. I will go down a hook size for the second one but blocking is going to have to make the other work because I’m not frogging!

May 25, 2019

Half way done with the squares! The Garden Gate square was one of my favorites so far.

July 1, 2019

The last square was released this morning and I finished the first one. I really like the square since I’m a big fan of cables. For my 25th, extra square, I think I’ll do a mash-up of squares 8 and 12 and put it right at the center.

Next, after the squares are done, is to edge them all in cream and then block them all to roughly the same size. Then I’ve decided to do a continuous flat braid join in cream -- there is no suggested join (or border) for the CAL, strangely.

For border, I am leaning toward linen stitch since that would allow me to pull in the different colors, then ending with a round of reverse single crochet. (Note so self: go up a hook size for the border.)

July 9, 2019

My squares are all joined now and I really am pleased with the way this came out. I had my doubts about the color scheme, but I think it is lovely and soothing. I’m still going to do a few rounds of linen stitch with whichever colors I have enough of, then crab stitch in cream to finish it off.

I considered giving this to my uncle who is celebrating 60 years in the priesthood, but looking at it, I’ve decided it’s too girly. Instead, I’m going to give him the Faded Love blanket that I finished a few weeks ago. This one would be nice for my aunt (his/my mother’s sister) who has a flower name and loves Ireland; the greens and the cables, and the fact that my daughter visited Ireland while I was making this, makes that connection for me.

August 1, 2019

Updated to add that my Aunt Rosemary loved the blanket!