I know I have mentioned this a couple posts ago, but I happen to be a Professional Wedding Attender. My hubby and I have attended 24 weddings in the past 5 years (with 6 more coming in the next few months). Many good friends have "tied the knot" and I have wanted to help them celebrate by giving them a special gift. So I make these special friends what I like to call "Sweethearts blankets." They are actually afghans that I crochet. I make one huge "Granny Square." And when I say huge...I mean fits over a king size bed huge! They are so much fun to make. Lots of hard work, love, and even prayer goes into each and every one of these afghans. I have been super busy making these afghans in preparation for this year. I am going to end up making 5 of these for 6 of the upcoming weddings. I currently have 3 completed. But I can't show you pictures just yet, because some of these fabulous friends follow this blog and I don't want to ruin any surprises.
The 4th afghan is going to be a little different than my normal wedding afghan. It is for a couple that that my hubby and I are mentoring through our Church parish. We have really only gotten to know them because of their impending nuptials. So while I thought it would be nice to give them an afghan that they can cuddle up with each other under it, I didn't necessarily want to give them a "Sweethearts Blanket." The next best thing - my "Scrap Wrap afghan." This pattern is awesome! And I have made 2 in the past (another one being a wedding present for my hubby's colleague.
Here is a pic from the catalog of what the finished product should look like:
It is so fun to make, organize, and assemble. I did a lot of organizing last night so that I could begin the assembly process and I wanted to share a bit of the process. First you make a ton of tiny "granny squares" (I made 1,184 for this particular project).
Then you begin to lay them out on a flat surface in 26 rows of 36 "motifs" aka granny squares. I decided to make this particular afghan a little bigger than normal so I made 28 rows of 40 motifs. This pic is about halfway done:
And after a couple of hours of hard work, here is the final lay-out:
Now I need to find a way to put this away until I can crochet them all together...because my hubby would be pretty upset if he didn't get to sleep in our bed due to a crochet project. So I take a long piece of yarn, one row of motifs and string them together. I label the first motif of the row so I know what order the squares go in and here is the finished product (for now):
Now all I have to do is crochet them together vertically and horizontally and then finish it off with a great border around the whole afghan. Stay tuned, I will post pics when I am done.
I have to admit... anything with millions of little pieces drives me nuts, so I stay away from granny squares and fun little pieces. I know... lazy me. In the past 2 years I have delved into the world of garments, and it's my new passion!
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