Pastel Wonderland Blanket Finished

This week I finished my most technical blanket yet.

Its from a book called Round And Round The Crochet Hook, By Emily Littlefair. I bought the book mostly for the pattern for this blanket, its such a lovely blanket and who doesn't need a showstopper in there pile of blankets. 

It didn't go completely to plan, I made a mistake early on that meant I was short 1/3 the stitches. The blanket had started to bow and I was feeling kinda down about it, assuming it was my tension or something like that. It wasn't till I counted the repeats that I realized the really issue. 

I was devastated when I realized I basically needed to start over, it wasn't worth unraveling what I had done as the mistake was so early. But when I started again it soon went quickly and I was back to where I had been in no time and most importantly it was lying perfectly flat. 

I had to take a break part way through, partly because I wanted to sew some clothes. and partly because I got sick of the "back loop only" rows, so many of them and they are so slow going. Don't get me wrong, they look great but after a few I gave up and did normal, both loops, stitches. Of course the following row actually needed the front loop of the row I had just skipped them on. I decided to replace the "in front loops of previous round" with a simple spike stitch, much easier and faster.

After that it was back to a speedy pace. Being off work sick for a couple of days gave me the time I needed to finish it off. So ta da! I'm really happy with it.