Granny Challenge Blanket Ta Da!

On the 29th March 2013 I announced the start of the #GrannySquareChallenge with this little blog post.  Over 6 weeks many of you joined me in making a start on a blanket.  Some of you finished those blankets and others are still working on them. You can look at all the past Granny Challenge posts by clicking here

For me it certainly was a kick starter 6 weeks as it is now almost a year on and I have finally finished!

It's very hard to get a good picture of the whole blanket as it really has turned into a monster.  It entirely covers my king-size bed and is super heavy.

 For the last couple of weeks I've been edging it and carrying it about in my lovely new PiP Studio shopper bag which is just perfect for storing such a beast.

So here are the stats:

 

Made using all stash for the colour, mainly Stylecraft Special DK but a few randoms in there of no known origin too!  A 4mm hook and then joined with white Stylecraft Special DK which was bought just for the job.  I lost track of how many white balls but I am guestimating approx 8.  I do know I used 1 ball just for the scallop edging alone and another 1 and a half for the join as you go element.

So I started with 168 squares - 14 different colour ways reversed to make 28 different square designs repeated 6 times each!

These were laid out in a pattern (trust me, there is one, look closely).  My friend Saz sat with me one evening whilst I laid them all out on the floor.  Wine helped the process but you can see how I did it by reading my week 6 update

 

They were then joined together using Lucy from Attic24's DC join method and I chose to have my DC stitches showing on the front to give a bit of added texture.

Then I added some rounds of granny stripe to the edge before planning on a scalop finish.  

When I got to the golden coloured round I thought to myself.......'Do you know what Claire? Another round of squares would really finish this blanket off' I counted my clusters and did some maths and worked out that if I joined as you go I would need 64 squares to make an edge.  And so round 2 of square making commenced back in late November some time.

 

Once they were all done I drew myself a little join as you go map and set off hooking up a storm.  At the end of the first side I hit a stumbling block.  18 squares in and I realised I'd done the maths wrong :-(

 

 

Another round of granny clusters is all it took to fix it though so after another 2 hours crochet to put in the round I set off again adding my squares on.  That started last Sunday afternoon at my parents house over a cuppa and carried on into the evening in front of the telly and finally finished 5 1/2 hours of hooky time later just after midnight!

Over the past week I have added another 2 rounds of half trebles to edge and then a scallop border made up simply of 1dc and then 5htr into each stitch.  The scallops have caused the edge to ruffle which I really like and am enjoying piling up the fold to look at the border all together.

I don't really have the pretty shabby chic bedroom and bed needed to do this blanket justice in it's final photoshoot, so for now you will have to make do with it laid out on my average, day to day bed.  But trust me when I say it is lovely and without being too big headed I am very proud of finishing this one.

I would love to know exactly how may hours have gone into his challenge, but I dread to think!

I you were a #GrannyChallenger then please let me know how you've got on.  Share your photos with me and your story and I will happily link up to your blanket on the blog.