Color Block Blanket and the Tribe Grows

A member of my knitting tribe is getting ready to adopt a beautiful, little girl, and we all got very excited about a wee one being added to our community.  With some guidance from one of her nearest and dearest a Color Block Blanket by BacoKnitter to match new momma's nursery was decided on.  Several of us joined the group popping out squares for the blanket.  I knitted 3 basket weave squares in magenta for the project.  Unfortunately, I was out of town for the seaming party. Truly wanted the experience of seaming with my tribe, but hopefully will be available for next group seaming.  I enjoyed the whole project, the covert knitting, the secretive emails, and the fun of being part of something so joyous.  To my tribe I say I love you guys.  To the new mom and dad I say much, much happiness. To see a photo of the project go here (http://www.flickr.com/photos/starmonkeybrass/8007495807/in/photostream) I am not smart enough to figure out how to steal the image for my blog.

To myself I said, hey this pattern would be perfect for all that Muench Big Baby I have been hoarding for the last few years.  Granted this was the middle of summer with temperatures in the low 100s and knitting a blanket is a bit on the mad side of things to do.  However, I was inspired by my tribe and told myself I would just work on the green basket weave squares.  I could do just one ball at a time and a 10X10 square that is not so bad, right?  Right.

Well after tearing through 10 of those in about 2 weeks, I thought well why don't I just work on some of the other colors too.  I mean I can just stop at any time and do something else.  It is not like I am going to finish this thing during a heatwave or something.  But then after another 2 weeks I had finished all the squares and I kind of wanted to see how the blocks would look together.  I thought if I sew a few of these together, I can preview the product to come.

Obsession is never pretty and in this case it was hot and ugly, but in a week I had all the blocks seamed together.  Once to this point I thought I wanted a crochet border.  Problem was I needed a jump start on the border.  I have used this border before, but I wanted some guidance on starting the crochet.  You see I only use crochet when I have to.  Not that I don't like crochet, but I really only know how to do a basic stitch.   My friend Robin, another member of my knit tribe, kick started me and the border was growing, as in seven rows of border for the blanket.

Madness, I know, but by now I realized I might as well weave in the ends and call it done, and so I did.   I even managed to make a little pillow with the scraps from the yarn.  Timing is everything and working on a heavy microfiber blanket in summer is not a suggested project, but come winter me, the blanket, and the pillow will be enjoying each others company on many late nights.