FO Friday: Geaux Saints!!!!

It’s been five months in the making, but I finally finished my sister’s blanket!

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Backstory: My baby sister moved to New Orleans in August to attend law school.  She responded to my offer of a housewarming gift (made in August) by asking for a blanket in the colors of the New Orleans Saints (in November! at the height of holiday crafting madness!).  I considered a few different designs but settled on the double Irish chain quilting layout with join-as-you-go granny squares.

This is how I imagine it will look on my sister’s (unmade) bed.

The details

Grannies: 375 three-round granny squares (approximately 56 hours).

Borders and Edging: 4 rounds of gold granny borders, 1 round of black granny border, 7 rows each of black granny stripe borders on the right and left sides, 1 round of black single crochet (approximately 7 hours).

Weaving in ends: estimated at 10 hours!  (Why, oh why, did I wait until the end to do this??  And, I will definitely avoid projects with this many black yarn tails in the future.  It was really hard to see what I was doing!)

Yarn: 6.5 Skeins Cascade 220 Superwash in 877 and Black; 38 skeins of Filatura Lanarota Pure Washable Merino in Natural and Black.

Yardage: Approximately 5,100 yards (4,663 meters).

 

Hook: My trusty Etimo in Size J-10 (6 mm).

Yarn Suppliers: Alpaca Direct, Knitty City, and Smiley’s Yarns.

Special thanks to: The nice folks in the New Orleans group on Ravelry for giving me color tips.

This blanket is doing triple duty as (now pretty late) housewarming, birthday, and Christmas gifts for my sister.  But when I look at the cost of making it (even with a pretty conservative estimate), it is way more than I would normally spend on these gifts for her.

Labor Costs (at minimum wage): $529.25

Yarn Costs: $232.56

Postage: Priority Mail with insurance $27.70

Talk about a labor of love!

If I had to put a price on this blanket today for sale, I would ask for $1,000.  (I doubt I would get it, but that’s what I would ask for!)  I only insured it for $500 when I shipped the blanket, though – I figured if I could recover twice the yarn cost, I could probably be persuaded to crochet another one for my sister.  It’s still in the mail, so let’s all hope it arrives safely and I don’t have to put this theory to the test.

For more Finished Objects, visit Tami’s Amis.

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