It’s the end… but the moment has been prepared for.

Week 17 and I am done!  Callooh! Callay!  I haven’t posted for a few weeks for a variety of reason.  The first weekend I was gallivanting around the Edinburgh Festival having a lovely time.  While I was there I fell over and landed with all my weight on my left hand.  (I was stone-cold sober, I hasten to add.) For about a week afterwards I couldn’t really stitch for more than a few minutes at a time.  Once that had improved, I kept thinking I was almost finished and putting off blogging but, as always, the last little bits took far longer than I anticipated and, to paraphrase Number 10, time got away from me.

So what were the final tasks?  I glued the Police Public Call Box letters into place and then, because they seemed a little less than sturdy, I sewed them down for good measure.  Next I added a two round double crochet border in black to tidy up the edges. Then I “embroidered” the door plaque.  I am not happy with how this turned out *at all*.

Quite a disappointment

The soluble Aida gave the impression that the stitches were far more uniform than they actually were.  Once I dissolved the Aida and lost the grid structure, the shape of the crochet stitches underneath pulled the letters out of shape.  Some of the letters lost their shape and the lines of text revealed themselves as really quite wonky.  I’ve decided to live with it for the time being but, if it really bugs me, I may get some ironing paper and material to cover it in the future. Lastly, I sewed in the ends.

"Oh, you sexy thing!"

Approximately 50,500 stitches have gone into this blanket over 200 hours or 15.4 days.  It’s the most ambitious project I have made to date so I am trying to cut myself some slack over the deficiencies.  I have decided not to crochet the St John’s Ambulance badge despite declaring that I would all along.  I think it may make it look a little too busy.  So all that remains for Monkey and me to do now is to snooze under it.  Now, where’s that tea cosy pattern I had my eye on?