Finally finished......

The picture above is a shot of the final, FINAL stitch of a large blanket that I've been crocheting since the beginning of March this year.

I'm extremely pleased with how it's come out.  The design is called Summer Garden Granny Square and you can find it at Attic24, the blog of the very talented Lucy.  There were 17 different colours in all but that certainly felt like not enough, bizarrely.  And I'm not pedantic about what I used - wool, cotton, acrylic, cashmere, even camel - it's all in there, it was the colour that attracted me.

I made squares that harmonised, complemented and clashed.  Individual little squares were grouped into a collection of four, then two borders was added around them.  I then joined 3 more of these squares together so they made a block of four, then added a border each of fern green and glacier blue.  I then attached 32 little squares around that and did a raspberry pink border around that.  These big squares were 2 feet across. 

Here's one I was blocking a couple of days ago (the very dark coloured wool used in the central four squares is actually a dark auberginey purple, and not black - there's no black or white in this blanket):

Admittedly there were quite a few days when I didn't pick up the hook and wool but not many.  By the end I was able to crochet without looking which makes doing it in front of the telly much easier.  This picture is all 9 big squares laid out on the floor before blocking and stitching together:

It didn't take me too long to stitch them altogether, and here's the final product:

I made this for our bed so here it is in its final location, ready to be sat on by our one remaining cat:

Isn't it fabulous? Even if I say so myself although this does mean I won't be able to change the colour scheme in our bedroom as it goes so well with the raspberry pink walls and petrol blue/green curtains....

I think it was worth every second of the enormous amount of time it took me to make it.  People who are not crafty and don't make things invariably have no comprehension whatsoever of the amount of time and effort that goes into creating something; they equate 'handmade' with 'cheap' and then baulk when told the price.

I calculated how many stitches I put into this blanket.  You're not going to believe it but I swear this is accurate - 47,000.  That's right - there's at least forty-seven thousand stitches in this.

And I'm probably going to start doing another one....