Living With Squirrels

Olivia's Birthday Blanket 2009

Harvest of Color

Finished Measurement: 43"x61"

Livvy's was the first birthday blanket (June). It's smaller than I would have liked, but I am still just learning how to do afghans. Livvy chose the colors: limelight, grape, & watermellon.

The new stitch I learned is called a cluster. It was the hardest one for me to learn. I struggled for weeks to figure it out. My good friend, Jori, took pity on me & showed me how to do it. It's not really a hard stitch, the pattern instructions were lacking information. I also chose my own border. Actually, Livvy was quite adamant about how she wanted it. So I did a single crochet stitch, shells, and a slip stitch.

Olivia really likes her blanket!

(I couldn't find a link for this pattern. Sorry!)

Kara's Birthday Blanket 2009

Graphic Squares Throw

Design by: Anonymous

Finished Measurement: 46"x80"

This is a very simple pattern. I used double crochet & single crochet stitches. Kara chose the colors: lemonade, watermelon, mango, and soft mint. I could take my crocheting with me to appointments or out of town because it is just pieces that are later stitched together. So I was able to complete her blanket in exactly 4 weeks.

The yellow border around each rectangle is the same double crochet, single crochet pattern.

Then the rectangles were stitched together with a slip stitch.

For the border, I did my own pattern using single crochet, double crochet, & slip stitch.

I did the blue slip stitch right over the yellow single crochet stitch for more detail.

Ahhh! I think Kara's happy with it!

http://www.caron.com/projects/br/CN0990_colorblock_af.html

Emma's Birthday Blanket 2009

Scrap Bargello

Design by: Diane Poellot

Finished Measurement: 55"x80"

Emma chose her colors: lemonade, grape, mango, watermelon, limelight, & blue mint. I learned how to do treble stitches. The other stitches in this pattern are single crochet, half double crochet, & double crochet. Instead of using a size H hook, I used size J.

Just a tad bigger to help make up for my tight crocheting.

This was a fun pattern because of the diversity of stitches used as well as the fun, bright colors Emma chose. I also liked not having to do a border around the entire blanket at the end. The pattern called for a finished border for the first & last rows only.

Stitches were crocheted in the back loop of each stitch to create the detailed ripples. Each row took about 21 minutes. But that's if I'm not talking to anyone. I struggle to crochet & yak at the same time. After every 12 inches I crocheted, I'd then hide the strands on the ends of each row.

That took me about an hour.