Delivered

I finished the commissioned blanket, and since I had time and yarn I made a cowl, hat, and fingerless mitts because the recipient is going to school in New York.

This is what I was given as a starting point:

   

Not the blanket - three photographs, luckily with a measuring tape included in the image.  I think having just photographs, and mostly of the border, is why I was the only person to volunteer when the grandmother said she and the mother wanted a duplicate of the "lovey" as it was too precious to risk going to college.  The new one would be in college colours, and they would supply the yarn.

That was in the spring.

They had to choose the yarn, getting the colours correct, and finally in mid-July the grandmother provided two skeins of Caron Simply Soft, one in Dark Sage and one in Off White.  Realizing they had no no idea about the real yarn requirements, I used a supersavings coupon from Michaels to order more of the Off White.  Then the grandmother dropped off two more skeins, having understood my concern.  So I had two of the Dark Sage, and five Off White.  And about a month in which to do this, given when the girl goes off to college.

First thing was to determine the pattern and gauge.  Luckily I could print the top photo at about life size, so I could use it for pattern-checking:

Size H/8 (5.00MM) hook did it.  If you look closely, you can see the swatch exactly covers the pattern.

Then I did the necessary calculations to figure out how many stitches to start, and off I went!  Lots of crocheting back-and-forth.  Luckily it's a simple repeat and I could soon do it with minimal attention.  I will not bore you with all the progress photos, but the center piece took just past three skeins.

Although the original doesn't appear to have a full round of single crochet before the accent colour, I did it for stability and tidiness.  Then it was one round of sc in green, two rows of double crochet (dc) in green, one more of sc in green, and rows of sc, dc, and sc in white.

The border matches!

For the hat and mitts I used a Caron pattern, making the wrist longer and adding three-row stripes.  The cowl/neckwarmer is just 100 stitches, same striping pattern, in K2P2 ribbing.

I kept the extra yarn and will use it to make blanket pieces for Warm Up, America!  There is very little of the green left, and less than a full skein of the cream, so I cannot do a scarf.  Those will be a handy carry-along project, since the blanket I am working on for WUA is too big to carry and work on conveniently - especially give how hot is our weather right now!