7/14 - Cast-on, this is my largest and most complicated project to date. Here goes nothing!

7/18 - About 20 rows away from finishing the center square but the project has become infested with kittens (see photos), not sure how to proceed…

7/20 - Kittens distracted and I finally finished the center tree square. Somehow managed no mistakes and ended up with the right number of stitches on all sides. It’s all squeezed on a 36” circular needle at the moment, but giant ones have been ordered, can’t wait for them to arrive!

Going to test out the braided border and attaching on scrap yarn before on the real project. Noticing some puckering in the creases where there were 3 rows of increases in a row, I really hope it can be flattened out when blocking. Also noticing my increases look fantastic on the wrong side and kind of messy on the right side. Wishing I would/could have swapped that.

7/21 - Giant needles from knitpicks.com have arrived! I transferred the center square to three 47” connected needles to be able to see the entire square at once. Definitely will need a good blocking (see pre-blocked pictures) but I think it’s looking good so far!

7/22 - Did a preliminary blocking of the center square before starting the first border. The piece flattened out beautifully but took forever to dry!

7/27 - First side and corner of the braided border complete, into the second side now. The border looks great (see pictures) but is using a lot more yarn than I anticipated; I may only be able to make the smallest size.

8/9 - Stalled out a bit on the border, it’s slow-going. I took a break to knit a scarf but have picked up the border again now that the scarf is done.

8/14 - Into the last side of the border, going very smoothly. It’s wound up the smallest rather than the medium (I ran out of yarn), but since my gauge was larger than the pattern called for, it’s still a great size for a lap blanket.

8/16 - Finished and blocked!

Giving it to my grandma next weekend, I’m excited to see how she likes it!