September 4, 2018

I finished the first part, up to row 16 of the trees pattern.

So far, the pattern is fast and easy though it’s about to get much more tricky. My throw will be quite small since I’m using DK rather than Aran weight yarn. I may repeat the center and tree sections one more time.

To replace flowers section, some possibilities:

• The Cable Stitch, multiple of 3 (plus 2)
• Celtic Weave, multiple of 4 (plus 4)
• Basket Weave, multiples of 3 (plus 2)
• Diamond Trellis Stitch multiple of 14 + 4 (used by brjacopa on her blanket), or Bonnie’s Diamond pattern, multiples of 4 (plus 2)
• Blackberries pattern from 63 Cable Stitches to Crochet (used by beadedunicorn)

September 5, 2018

Through YouTube suggested videos, I discovered a channel called Nautical Moon (Kay) has also done video tutorials for this pattern. She started last May and is just now finishing up the border, video 96! I did rows 17 - 19 (video 69) just to see how they were. Her videos are quite slow so I think I’ll stick with Bonnie’s.

September 10, 2018

Bonnie’s video 2 came out this morning (rows 17 - 30). I have finished half-way through row 27 where I ran out of my first skein of yarn.

September 11, 2018

I finished through row 30 this morning (bringing me to the end of video 2). After a while, I stopped following the video and just went from the written instructions since it was faster, but then I realized I should really be following the chart. There are places where you have to skip stitches in the row below and where you must put both a FPDC and a sc in the same stitch the row below and the written instructions don’t have that information (they just say “sc in the next 3 stitches”, or whatever). In other words, going from the written pattern I will have the right stitch count, but I may have increased or decreased in the wrong place which will make the following post stitches lean the wrong way just a bit. As I know Bonnie would tell me, they’re trees and real trees are organic and not identical or symmetric, so it really doesn’t matter. But, now that I’ve figured this out, I will try to place my stitches where the chart indicates so that my trees are as neat as possible.

OK, I just went back to the videos by Nautical Moon, and she re-writes the instructions to include the information of which stitches to work into and which stitches to skip. She shows her hand-written instructions at the beginning of the videos. (Start with Part 68 where she repeats the trees.) I’m going to finish this pattern by pausing her videos at her hand-written instructions and follow those. I’ll do it at Bonnie’s pace (and I feel a little disloyal to Bonnie), but it’s silly to not make use of the best information available. I just asked Kay if maybe they are uploaded somewhere on her Facebook page.

September 13, 2018

Kay responded right away that her instructions were not yet available on-line, so I offered to start uploading my screenshots:
* Google Drive folder for Kay’s instructions

I’m adding them as I do them so it will take me a while to get them all uploaded.

Carolynn from the Crochet Crew wants to make this blanket too. That would be fun!

September 19, 2018

I have finished the first Trees panel!

I’ve decided I’m definitely going to do the Diamond Trellis pattern between the trees. I’ve watched the video tutorial, and to get the multiples to work, I’ll have to add a stitch on either side as well. (Pattern needs 14 + multiple of 4, closest is 142).

I’m also thinking of only working one of the trees on the middle panel, and leaving the two on either side as just SC. My idea is to give this as a wedding gift to the next family member to get married -- probably a nephew or niece, or maybe even a daughter someday. (Now that’s a scary thought!) I would use cross stitch or surface crochet to add a monogram one one side and the date on the other in the wedding colors.

September 26, 2018

Note: after the divider, I only put one row of sc (instead of 3) before starting the trees pattern again.

September 28, 2018

I just finished row 31 of the second trees panel. I did choose to only do one set of trees in this middle section.

October 5, 2018

I finished the second divider/diamond trellis section this morning. Now on to the last of the trees panels.

October 10, 2018

I’ve finished rows 1-16 of the third trees panel (Wednesday morning).

The first time we did the trees in the CAL we did these divisions over the next three weeks. I’m going to try to do them one each evening:

• Rows 17 - 30
• Rows 31 - 40
• Rows 41 - 55

October 12, 2018

I am done with the third trees panel! Just the border to go now. I am looking forward to Bonnie’s suggestions for alternatives for the border.

October 18, 2018

All done! Exactly six weeks after I started. I decided to go with “just” the three rounds of knurl stitch (reverse single crochet)/single crochet for the border. (Three rounds of knurl is slow and tough on the wrists/elbows.) The leaves edging from the pattern is ugly, IMHO, and crazy fiddly. Bonnie did it for the CAL videos but then frogged it because she didn’t like it either. Bless her. She showed another leaf edging of her own design but I think the simplicity of the knurl edging complements the design best.

I’m happy with how it came out though it needs a good blocking. I’ll use this one to practice techniques for adding a monogram/year on the middle side panels and I’ll make the next one in an Aran weight with some wool content to make it more special for gifting.