It is done...

ETA 4/4/09 - I just wanted to link to this great pattern provided by The Purl Bee for a giant granny square blanket to help those of you who stop by my blog looking for a pattern. I hope their pattern will help you out. This post originally published 9/11/07. As you figured, I finished up my Granny Squared blanket over the weekend. This is, by far, the biggest project I've ever done. I had to look back in the archives to see when I first started this adventure and it was back in the beginning of March, seven months ago! I was working on it quite a bit in the beginning, but then I lost interest a little and it sat for a while. Then, back in July, I started working on it again. I must tell you that as I was weaving in the last few ends and snipping them off, I had butterflies in my stomach. It just felt so good to finish it. Yes, there are about three mistakes, but they're hardly obvious, so that's good. Granny Squared Afghan Pattern: Inspiration for the pattern came from Lion Brand's catalog pictured here, but I didn't want to buy the pattern. I found the seemingly exact same pattern here Patons Funky Felted Granny Bag (obviously I didn't make a bag and did not felt the blanket), but used the color pattern shown in the Lion Brand catalog. Yarn: Caron Simply Soft, about 2-3 skeins of each color. I went with Caron, which is a synthetic yarn, because I did not want to spend very much money on the yarn. The Simply Soft is about three dollars a skein, and with 11 different colors with four repeats, you can see how expensive that could get had I gone with a $6-$8 yarn. The Simply Soft is very soft and doesn't have any dye lot numbers, which was really good for me when I ran out of yarn a few times. Notes: I love how it turned out. I used the book Knit Loves Crochet borrowed from the library to figure out a border. Paton's pattern was for a bag to be sewn together and did not have a border in it's pattern, as far as I know, so I had to look elsewhere. I could have found one online, but most did not have pictures with their directions and I couldn't see how it would look finished. The book had a few border options for me to use, with pictures. As for making one big granny square compared to many small granny squares sewn together, I like the big granny square a little better. Granted, I haven't made a regular granny square blanket, but I really liked that I could stop at any time in the blanket, after any repeat. I also liked that I didn't have to sew squares together and had fewer ends to weave in as a result. That being said, I really do also like the look of a regular granny square blanket and hope to make one some day. I hope this helps any of you thinking of making a granny square blanket. It has been a really rewarding experience. I even lugged the thing on trips to football games and track meets just so I could work on it. By the way, I meant to tell you that Jane Eyre helped me finish it up this past weekend. No, not literally, but I watched this really great BBC version with Timothy Dalton. The best version I've seen (I think I've only seen two).