Happy Flower Blanket -Ta-dah

My happy flower blanket that I started back in January has  finally, finally been finished.  What a labour of love it was with exactly 150 granny flower squares then the joining of them all and a boarder...I'd hate to even guess at how many hours it took, it was around 2 months and I did more some days than others but I did it!

I got the original idea here but I did change my squares to 5 rounds then a round of joining.  This was mainly due to Sharron using cotton and a 3.5mm hook where as I was using a variety of mostly 8 ply wool and/or acrylic on a 4.25mm hook so it would have ended up too big.  I also didn't have the choice of the gorgeous colour combinations but I did put a big dint in the yarn I had hoarded on hand.  I think I only needed to purchase 8 or so balls which made this a pretty cheap blanket.

Although the placement looks random, some thought has to go into it as you don't want to double up on the same colours in the same rows.  I layed them all out then bundled them into row piles and got to hooking them together.

I love the joining together stage, something wonderful happens when you can see your creative imaginings  coming together in a real project in the form of a warm snuggly blanket.  My husband must be a saint cause if it was his stuff piled all over the lounge room day after day, week after week, we would be divorced!! Funny how us woman can cope with our crap all over the house, my hubby says even his car keys get moved within minutes of him popping them on the kitchen bench...Me? Territorial? Perfect? Never!!

Excuse me while I bombard you with the stages and photos!!

It kept my legs nice and warm as I was joining it and as it grew and the colours came together it just made me happy.

here he is without a boarder

I was going to do a colourful boarder but it just looked wrong - too much going on so I went with the pink doing a granny stitch all the way around twice and ended with a round of dc.  I used this granny boarder technique to avoid the corners curling here, but I must admit it is curling up a little but it's hardly a problem.  The boarder and joining is in 4 Seasons pure wool entwine 8ply 100% Australian wool made for spotlight.

On my daughters bed - it's a present for her 8th birthday that I'm hoping will be well loved and used.

this gives you an idea on my queen size bed how big it is...and I think maybe it looks good on my bed too

So there we have it! It's my 4th blanket in less than a year but this is by far the largest.  My aunt has already put her hand up to make her one which I've been itching to start, but I just couldn't start it before this one was finished.  It's going to be a different one altogether, not a granny square or stitch insight so I might be doing some super fast learning!  Thank goodness for youtube.....

Ciao, Jan x