Kim's Crochet Blog

I mentioned in my last post that I was going to make some hats, gloves or scarves for the school I’m working at now that I’ve finished the Mario blanket.  I searched from some crochet hat patterns and found that the easy level ones were rather boring.  I found one that I really liked with a cool spiral effect but I’d have to learn a whole new stitch.  I looked for some video instructions for the the stitch front post double crochet, also known as fpdc, and saw that it wasn’t particularly difficult.  I dove right into the pattern starting with my new friend the Magic Ring and had a great time working on the hat.  I was very determined to finish it tonight and worked on it for several hours.  It wasn’t difficult just a lot of work.  I finished the hat around 8pm after starting it around 4pm.  I had already decided early on today that it would be an easy-going, do-nothing, lazy day since the other days of the holiday were busy!  Between working on the hat I did get 2 loads of laundry in though, so not a complete waste.

The hat is titled Divine and I found it at Rheatheylia.com.  It took a bit more yarn than I had anticipated but luckily I had just enough left over Pound of Love blue.

Another project I’d like to do is granny square slippers from The Purl Bee.  Too much to create and not enough time!

After I worked my way around the blanket attaching the squares I then went back and sewed together the other seams.  This went rather quickly since there was no need to stop and make more squares.  The lack of need to stop also made it easy to sit and work for 3 or 4 hours at a time.  I worked a lot on it Thursday before Thanksgiving dinner and then on Friday.  When all the seams were completed I did a single crochet border around the blue squares with blue to even the edges.  Before doing that I had started adding the black border but noticed some uneven edges where squares met at the corners hence the decision to single crochet a blue edge.  After completing the blue edge I added two rows of double crochet in black with a last row of single crochet in black.  Then it was complete!

Not quite.  I went over the whole blanket meticulously and redid 2 or 3 seams between reds and a couple of peach in the face.  I also pulled out a couple tails that were unraveling and hid them better.  I definitely see an improvement in my work from the beginning of his face to the blue background.  When I give the blanket I will probably include some long bits of yarn of each color in case there is some unraveling after playing with the blanket though I doubt it will be necessary.

The blanket has a bit of an identity crisis in my eyes.  Now that I’m complete it’s a bit smaller than I was thinking so really it would be more appropriately named a throw; like something you use while sitting on the couch watching TV.  Also the squares are small and kind of tight so it’s not a very soft flexible throw so now it could almost be considered a mat or even something to hang on the wall.  The peach yarn dictated the size of yarn to be used in the whole project as it was very difficult to find something suitable.  In retrospect I could probably have used a larger hook for a little bit more looseness in the stitches.

Super Mario Blanket Stats

• 22 working days
• 35.5inches x 45.5inches
• 20 x 30 squares = 600 total
• 4 colors
• Channels watched: TLC, USA, AE

I’ve made a video/slide show of the Mario photos using Picasa 3.  I’ve never used their video feature and it looked ok in the program now I’m just waiting for Youtube to process it for viewing.  I’ll post a link as soon as I can.  Now that I’m done with this project it’s time to think about my next project.  The school I’m working at is collecting hats, scarves and mittens so I will take a stab at making those.

I can’t wait for Christmas morning.  *grin*

[EDIT] Here’s the link to the video at Youtube:  Mario Video