Safi Baby Blanket (Neat Circles in Squares) - Fin!

I’ve been so busy lately!!

Last week I went and stayed with my Aunt and her husband in Somerset. We had a lovely time together, and I brought loads of yarn to their house for her to choose the colours she wants for the blanket I’m going to make for her. She’s allergic to wool, so this will be another Stylecraft Special acrylic blanket – but grown-up sized this time! (More about that in another post though)

From there, I went up to stay with my in-laws for a few days to help my mother-in-law on her stand at the Bakewell Wool Gathering. I arrived the day before to help load the van and set up the stand, then we had really busy days over the weekend. It was a steep learning curve, getting to grips with the features of all of the stock items and learning how to best advise the customers about different things. (In fact, as I think about it, maybe the Wool Gathering needs its own post too!!)  It’s always lovely to visit with my in-laws, so I ended up staying there much longer than I meant to, and helping a bit with the animals – which I really love doing.

Then I got home in time for my best friend to come and stay for a few days with her family. We’ve known each other since we were about 11, and been close friends since we were about 13. Even though I’ve lived a long way from home for the past 11 years we’ve remained good friends, and make an effort to visit each other whenever we can. It was great to see them all, but exhausting having boys aged 15 and 9 to keep happy! Such different interests at those ages, so hard work finding something that can work for them both…

I was sad to watch them all leave this morning, but it did also feel kind of nice to just have some time to myself after so long around other people – I really have got used to being on my own, and I find it a bit tiring to be sociable for too long! Haha    Being alone also gave me the chance to finish off my Neat Circles in Squares Baby Blanket that I started here.

Once all of the circle-in-square patches were finished I used (UK) single crochet on the right side of the blanket to join the squares together along their remaining sides, having joined the rows of the blanket together as each was completed. I really like the effect of this method, with the raised join forming a nice decorative feature, and the crocheting together giving a nice, straight, firm join. It obviously adds an extra element of work to a blanket compared to joining as you go, and therefore uses more yarn, but I still think it will be a technique I’ll use again on future blankets. And of course there are still more techniques for me to learn!!

For the border I decided to keep it plain – partly because I had made the blanket a bit small to start with, and really I should have taken it back and made more patches… It took a little bit of trial and error to get the first row stitches to lie flat with the rest of the blanket, but sadly as I increased the rows I somehow wasn’t able to maintain the flat-ness and the poor blankie has ended up with a slightly ruffled edge. I hope it will be ok! I’m hoping that with washing and use it will all settle down nicely.

I used the background colour in UK trebles, and put in rows of UK doubles in each colour to pretty it up. I finished off on a coloured row of DCs, and as they rounded the corners I put a little picot in to give a little shape to them. I like the effect of this, I might use this again in the future too where I’m doing an otherwise plain border.

So here it is finished. I’m pleased with some bits – the layout of the colours, the joining of the squares – and feel that I have room to improve for other bits – the border being ruffly – but I have enjoyed making this little baby blanket, and I’m very excited to give it to my friends, ready for their new arrival!