Or to put it another way … ‘ooh! That was close …

The 30 square blankie for August was meant to be simple!

I had chosen a multi mix from the Marble range of James C Brett. A green mix with touches of reds and pinks intermingled. Easy! A square a day and joining as I went along. What could go wrong?

I have used this yarn before, in various colour ways. It’s always a pleasure to use, and at my tension I’ve found a size 5 hook works best. This meant that a 7 round square would be slightly larger than last month’s. I had 6 balls, and as it happened – 1 ball made 6 squares. Perfect. The last ball would do for the border.

All went swimmingly until square 17! On August 17, and almost at the end of the third strip, I hit a problem. ONE OF THE BALLS WAS PARTLY USED !!!!!

I wouldn’t have enough yarn to finish.

Fortunately I was able to improvise. I had one ball of MT32 and with a little jiggery pokery all would be well. It meant separating the first two strips, and then making squares out of sequence for a few days but …

… it would be easy to catch up – or would it?

I told you above that I was using a size 5 hook …

Twice I made a square with the 4.5 – so those had to be frogged and redone properly (It was a shock to see just how much smaller they were). Sadly that wasn’t the only bit of frogging for this blanket! Three squares were started with a 5 – and completed (by accident) with a 4.5. Again, it was the mismatched size at joining that alerted me.

Remember I said that each ball of yarn made 6 squares? I had enough green for the border, but definitely not enough brown for a whole round, in fact there was barely 10 metres (less than 11 yards). Maybe small proportionate lengths would work?

I think it did.

And the leftover green yarn is minimal.

In a day or two I’ll share a couple of other makes, including the August strip of the Temperature Blanket. That is up to date this evening, but I’m working on an associated project which will also need its border finishing.

The September project begins tomorrow, that will be number 9 for 2022. A seven-round square is easy to complete in a day. One square a day for 30 days and – there’s a blankie! All details are here, including other blankets made using a similar principle