BTP: Sunny Spring Day Blanket

I originally purchased this yarn called banana because I wanted to make the Tin Can Flax Sweater for 6-13 months old. But after having it sit in my stash for more than a year and discovering my love for crochet baby blankets an idea formed. And that idea was to make a striped baby blanket! Read more for all the deets!

Now I have wanted to make a striped blanket for a while now but I could never find the right yarn for it. I went from Red Heart Baby Hugs to Hobby Lobby’s Soft and Sleek, but I couldn’t find a texture that I like with that had big hook size. I wanted to just whip up a blanket in no time. My Nature Blanket blog post has the more information about the yarn search struggle.

I procrastinated before starting this pattern because I’m the worst when it comes to chaining. I can’t really gauge how long the chain should be even when I gauge. I usually ended up being too long or too short. So I dreaded it when I first had to started this pattern. But then I remembered Tony from TLYarnCrafts talking about the chainless foundation and it seemed like all my problems were solved. Then I remembered how much I sucked at it during my first attempted and that’s why I haven’t gone back to it for a really long time. But my annoyance with chaining outweighed my fear of not getting it perfect. Besides practice make perfect right? After watching this video by Gleeful Things a few times while following along I mastered the chainless foundation while conquering my fear of failure!

While working on this blanket I realized I had to rip it out and restart to go up one hook size because the blanket looked all scrunched up. This also taught me about slow living, read more about it here. I’m someone who works best under a deadline. This I created one for myself during this project. I wanted to get it done by March 9th, the second Friday of this month so that I could get everything done for the newsletter and get it up on my website. I’ll tell ya I drove myself to exhaustion and my fingers kept getting cramped up. I started stressing out about whether or not I was gonna get this done. Then I realize that I can change the deadline. I’m in charge and I don’t want to not enjoy making what I love. This is the beauty of owning your own small business. You can adjust things according to how you want them. You can give yourself room to breathe. I wasn’t breathing so I knew it was time to adjust and that’s just what I did. So I move the deadline to give myself another week and it felt great. I had enough time to finish this piece and take all the pictures.

Side note when this was happening I became an aunt again! Miliana Grace was born while I was creating this blanket so you know who is getting gifted with this beauty.