The blanket is finished.....

Here is the blanket I have been sewing up recently for SIBOL.  As you can see, the squares are very varied and posed quite a challenge.  I brought them all up to more or less the same size and edged them with the same pastel green ....or is it blue?  It looks like a baby green to me but I think some people call it duck egg blue.  The ball of wool is actually the large one in the picture of wool at the top of my blog.  That means it is at least 18 months old but probably even older as I can't remember where this came from.  There is still a lot of it left even after edging the squares, sewing them together and edging the whole blanket.

There was one square left over and I didn't want to waste somebody's hard work.  So I added it as a little pocket for tissues, mints, or even mobile phones.  This blanket is going to an elderly persons' care home and 70 is the new 50!

I hope all the knitters and crocheters who made the squares are happy with the end result.  It was an international team effort.  The centre crochet square was sent all the way from the Netherlands.  (SIBOL welcomes completed blankets and shawls but is no longer able to accept orphan squares.)

I had never crocheted until about 2 years ago and progress has been very slow.  This blanket was a great incentive to "get on with it".  I had to learn how to add extra rows to granny squares and I now understand how they are made and wonder why I have previously made such heavy weather over it.  There is an expression about "over thinking" something and I think that is true of me and crochet.  I also added a shell edging and found it much quicker than knitting.  I will definitely use both techniques again in the future.

The photo background is a bit colourful as it is children's floor mats from the Early Learning Centre.  I use them when I am blocking and drying larger items.   They work very well as they are foam rubber and pins stick in easily.  I've just noticed the bright colours are showing through the crochet squares, which I hadn't intended.  The blanket is now safely boxed up and ready for posting, so another photo isn't possible. Daylight hours this month have been mainly gloomy and not conducive to good indoor photos.  The constant rain has made outdoor photography a distant memory. Roll on summer.