Ravelymics - crochet blanket

I think I'm already set up for failure here because this month has turned out to be crazy busy with a tight illustration deadline, but I entered the Ravelympics with a WIP project.

I posted about this project ages ago here. It's a crochet blanket intended to use up a bunch of little scrap balls of yarn. What happened is I got busy at some point and tucked it away. Which in our old house involved emptying half the hall closet and cramming it into some kind of bag, box or basket, then piling a bunch of stuff on top. So it was a combination of not seeing it around, plus not really being able to find it that led me to putting it aside forever.

Also I couldn't actually remember how I did it in the first place. I searched and searched but couldn't find any notes jotted down that told me the hook size I had used or how I made the granny square which has a slightly different centre than they usually have, with eight "petals" rather than four.

So my big tip today is to write down how you're making something if you're making it up as you go along. You think you'll remember, but if you put your project aside, a few notes will come in handy later on!

So entering the Ravelympics forced me to find all the squares I had already made, the bits of yarn in the right colours to make more squares, figure out the hook size and pattern (a lot of trial and error there) and figure out how to sew the squares together. For some reason I had a mental block about this. I didn't know how to do it, I had read detailed instructions for somehow effortlessly crocheting the squares together but couldn't make head nor tail of it.

I ended up sewing the squares together using the white yarn and a basic overstitch. It's good, it really does seem to just blend in, plus there's no raised ridge that you can get with some crochet joining techniques. I decided to start sewing them together as I go rather than waiting until the end. Waiting to the end would have been nice because you can move around the squares until there's a nice balance of colours, but then you kind of dread all the sewing together you have to do later.

This will look smoother at the seams once it's been blocked..

So I like the fact that I've sewn the squares together because now it looks more like a blanket and I can actually have it on my lap as I go which is cosy.

So there's two ways of looking at this. I'm not going to finish the blanket in time which is a failure, but now it's revived from an abandoned project to one on-the-go that is already kind of nice to have around. Which is good. So I guess that's how I'll look at it! I'm the kind of person that frets about not finishing things I've set out to do but for some reason in this case I'm ok with it.

I'm also in a cheerful mood today as I finally nabbed a much coveted Made by Hank bag today! I'm so happy about it as I'm a huge fan, plus those of you who have tried to buy one of her amazing bags will know that it involves basically refreshing her etsy shop constantly as they are snapped up minutes after she adds them. It leads to a bit of a panicky shopping experience if you really really want one because while you are looking at the pictures you know it could disappear at any moment. As it turned out, Bradley was refreshing the shop from time to time as well and he actually phoned me today to say there were bags in the shop.

Sorry to disappoint my fellow Made By Hank fans, but I bought the best one ever. I can't wait until it arrives!