Temperature Baby Blanket Page 2

Here are Steps 3 and 4 of the temperature baby blanket. 

For steps 1 and 2 please visit here.

3. The joining

I love the continuous flat braid join!

Since the squares for this temperature baby blanket are all single crochet, I wanted a different texture for the joinings. I followed Cheryl Bennett's directions at Crochet365Knittoo to join the 9 temperature spike squares with the continuous flat braid join. (She uses it for a lovely Happily Ever Afghan!)

 

4. The border

I love the flat braid join so much that I wanted the same braid all around the blanket, which Cheryl didn't do. But this join requires a separate edge to "braid" with the edge on the squares.

Make the outside braid

So, I made a chain long enough to go all around the temperature baby blanket. Then I turned and single-crocheted one row. That set me up to use the flat braid join to connect this long strip to the base edge of the blanket.

Two things are important to be able to do this adequately.

1.     Count around to get as close to the correct number of stitches as possible.

2.     Use the single crochet side of the strip to join with the edge of the blanket. (Your ch/sc strip faces inward toward the blanket.)

Figure the number of stitches

12 sides of squares     12 x 40 = 480

8 flat braid joinings    8 x 4 = 32

4 corners                     4 x 6 = 24

480 + 32 + 24 = 536 stitches for the chain

I had an uh-oh ~ here's how I fixed it

The truth is, this was too many for my blanket for some reason. I had extra sc left over after joining all the way around. Did I panic? Well, maybe for a split second. Then I breathed real deep, picked up my scissors, and snipped a stitch at the end of the extra. Using a yarn needle, I teased the extra stitches apart back to where I needed. There were two yarn ends from the unravel, so I tied them together and stitched them to the beginning of the round. Once I wove in the ends, the fix was invisible. Whew! Disaster averted!

Follow Cheryl Bennett's directions for the flat braid join. In each corner, I made 3 joinings instead of one. (She didn't do any of this. I borrowed her lovely join and made it work for this purpose. ;-) ) Start joining your strip with one in a corner. After joining all the way around, you will then do the 2 more joins in that corner. Then slip stitch and finish. 

Simple sc for the rest of the border

For the rest of the border, I made one row of sc for each of the colors in my pattern. This makes it easy to explain the blanket to enquiring minds. I had 8 colors, so 8 rows of sc. I made (sc, ch1, sc) in each corner. Then a final row of white sc.

Here you can be finished, if you wish! Wrap your new little arrival with a colorful hug!

Blocking acrylic

I wanted to block this blanket to retain its shape, so I bought this steamer on Amazon. You can use a steam iron, but I worried that I would melt the yarn!

This steamer is so simple to use and quick to heat up! The last steamer I had was old and required me to add salt to the water. Plus, it was really small.  

I've heard some people say that you can't block acrylic yarn. But you can!  Read more here. 

Border choices  ~ illustrated

Add a triangle shell edge to echo the spikes in the squares of this temperature baby blanket

I really like the simple, straightedge row by row finish for this crochet temperature baby blanket. But having seen the Cheryl's triangle edge border, I wanted to try it. The pointy edge echoes the spikes in the temperature blanket squares. So you have a choice of borders for your temperature baby blanket! 

Let me know in the Comments how my instructions worked for you. I'm not a pattern writer, but I love to share my projects with you!

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