A {finally} finished blanket

Ahhh...the blanket.  

The little project that began so innocently with a few jumbo skeins of yarn on clearance at the craft store.   

Then the purchase of this book:

And then by some cosmic twist of fate, the stumbling upon of this CAL (and learning what a Crochet-A-Long even was).

I was, shall we say, hooked.  On a mission to complete my very first crochet blanket with the very first crochet granny squares I had ever made.  

Day by day I crocheted grannies (64 in all), spending many Sunday afternoons in a rocking chair playing catch up on that week's squares.  I loved working over the patterns, falling into a rhythm of predictability, and watching each little square take shape.  Weaving in the ends was a bit of a pain, but still therapeutic in its own right.

But then came the joining.  I did not like the joining.  At. All.  

 It was monotonous, boring, tedious, uninteresting, chore-like.  

I don't like when creating feels like work, and this definitely felt like work.

But I kept at it and as my blanket grew, I was able to snuggle up in it as I joined row after row (ok, there were only 8 rows, but it easily felt like 80).

And finally just after my 38th birthday it was finished.  

Shortly after, I felt myself longing for another crochet project.

So what does a crazy-can't-get-enough-crochet girl like me do?  Start another blanket, of course.

African Flower Hexagon {pattern}

But I'm no dummy.  I'm using this technique to join as I go and I'm trying my hardest to {remember to} work over my yarn ends so I don't have to weave them all in.

So far so good.

And with any luck, this one won't take me a year to complete!