Blanket Statement

This winter has been super cold and we just got slammed with a pile of snow, so I've got blankets on the brain. Then again... I've always loved a good blanket. Fun fact: I have six blankets on my bed right now. And more in the closet. And more in the living room...

I'd say I just like being warm and cuddled up in something snuggly, but having and using quilts has always been a part of my family history. My grandma always had a quilt in progress, and I'm lucky enough to have some of these hand-made beauties complete with her own personalized sewn-in name tag.

I didn't appreciate my grandma's quilts enough when I was younger because I didn't understand the hours (and hours) of work that went into making them.

Now I'm older, wiser, and making blankets of my own. This particular afghan has been over five years in the making. FIVE YEARS that I've apparently been pouring my soul into this project.

Clutching pieces of my soul. This blanket is a Horcrux.

I used Lucy's Hexagon How-to for the hexagon motifs. This tutorial has detailed pictures and is easy to understand, even for a crochet novice like myself. Before this project, I'd never made a granny square (or granny hexagon...). Now I could probably make them in my sleep!

When I started this blanket back in college, I used the hexagons as decor. I thought they looked nice (kind of like those vintage buntings that are trendy right now) and it saved on storage space in my tiny room.

I used crochet hook size J(6MM), but gauge didn't matter so much to me. I just used a hook that felt comfortable with my worsted weight yarns. Even though I used the same size hook for all of the hexagons, not all worsted weight is created equal. Some of the motifs were larger than others, even though the labels claimed the yarns were the same weight.

That's probably because I wasn't very discerning when it came to yarn choice. This blanket is full of acrylic yarn of all brands that I have collected over the years. I've even had some of the yarn since I started knitting about nine years ago. This blanket was originally intended to be a yarn destash project because I have way, way too much yarn, but I ended up not limiting myself. If I felt like I needed more of a certain color, I would trek on to the craft store and pick up a skein. I have a problem... (I don't like ugly blankets).

The best laid plans of mice and men...

Before I started attaching my hexagons, I meticulously laid out my hexagon pieces and numbered them in stacks so I wouldn't have too much of one color in the same area. And then I crocheted one of the motifs in the wrong spot. Womp womp. I've had to do a little rearranging as I go, but my mistake hasn't been too devastating.

The single crochet join I'm using to attach the hexagons is creating a ridge effect, but I don't mind it. A slip stitch join would have been less dimensional, but I didn't like the look of it.

In hindsight, I would have liked the relatively seamless look of joining the motifs as I created them. The Hexagon How-to covers how to do that, but I wanted to be able to play with the color arrangement when I finished all of my motifs. In theory, I could have sewn the hexagons together, but I already had to weave in so many ends that the prospect was a little disheartening. I think sewing it up would have added another year to my work-in-progress!

Is it horrible that just looking at this picture makes me want to pick out my next blanket pattern?

As it happens, the crochet join I've chosen is moving along fairly quickly. I'm almost halfway through joining the rows. I can definitely tell this blanket is going to be HEAVY--perfect for when I can't justify having the heat on so high. I'm excited to finish this blanket and finally get some use out of it!

Happy making!