168

It's nearly 3 a.m. Sunday and I'm up cooking turkey meatloaf, garlic mashed potatoes (heavy cream, heavy cream), steamed broccoli, and roasted zucchini squash. I'd planned to cook Saturday afternoon, but I swear sometimes I don't come to life until the middle of the night. I can't wait to see how the meatloaf comes out; I've never made it before, and as usual I combined a couple of recipes, didn't measure, and added a few flourishes. We'll see.

Thanks for the comments on the sweater blanket. I'm glad y'all appreciate it like I do. It defines cozy. The only bad thing about it is that it's hard to get up once you're snuggled underneath it. golden star asked a question about construction, and perhaps a few more curious souls might venture here someday. To that end, I'll say that since I don't yet have a zigzag foot for the machine I used, I straight stitched my blanket. It wasn't hard at all; in fact, what was born of necessity is now preference, as I would do it that way again. I think it's easier than fussing with the right zigzag width. It's cleaner and likely more durable too.

I tried to stick to a 1/4" seam allowance, maybe a little more, and where I went off I just trimmed down to that much. I basically sewed it like a regular quilt. To line it, I faced the right sides together and did the old sew-around-but-leave-a-hole trick. The hole was just big enough to pull the entire combobulation through. ("Combobulation" doesn't seem to be recognized as a word -- I am doing my best to change this -- but it's 3 a.m. and y'all know what I mean.) I closed the hole when I topstitched the blanket.

On the granny square front (is there any other place to be?), I'm now joining and edging my squares. I crocheted 168 of them, all approximately 6" x 6". I wanted my queen-sized bed to be well covered, and with edging and blocking, it will be.

Because Ellen does not play around when it comes to working in yarn ends while you crochet, neither do I. I don't have ends to weave in, only the last little tail on each square to crochet in as I'm edging and joining. This is a tremendous time and sanity saver. Another fabulous technique is the method I'm using to edge and join simultaneously. There are several tutorials on it, but the best one I found is here on YouTube. It's in two parts, and very easy to understand. You can read my gushing comment to the woman who posted the video, offering to have her sainted and telling her I'll send Schmin around to do her bidding. I've joined 18 squares so far, 150 to go.

I loved making the squares, but have to admit I'm relieved to be putting them all together. I wanted no two squares to be alike, and racking my brain to decently combine colors for the last 30 or so squares was borderline crazy making. Now it's white, ah, white. Actually a creamy color called Aran, but the point is I don't have to do any more thinking, which suits me fine.

ETA: 4:35 a.m. Shit this meatloaf is good.