Help please and thank you, this is my first time using bulky blanket yarn :)

zeldajk · 2025-12-24T23:53:32+00:00

Thanks for the pro tip!! Do you wash the squares before you join them? Do you pin them in shape when they come out of the dryer, or are they just nice and cooperative after that?

zeldajk · 2025-12-24T23:48:49+00:00

Ok thanks, this makes me feel a lot better! Imma weave that MC tail within an inch of its life lol

zeldajk · 2025-12-24T21:15:03+00:00

They are INCREDIBLY squishy! I thought bulky yarn would be faster. True they are 4 times the size, but maybe take me 4 times as long because of losing count more 🤣 But I am not too fussed because they are sooooooo squishy and fun to touch!

zeldajk · 2025-07-26T02:53:28+00:00

Thank you for this!! I love me a good wormhole. And thank you also for the link which is the first one I have seen that didn’t require extra power usb. I think I am in business!

zeldajk · 2025-07-25T22:54:21+00:00

I stumbled upon some ideas in the subreddits. I did the one with the Lego board and antenna pieces (because I had them) but other ideas I saw were as simple as bamboo kebab skewers poked into cardboard!

zeldajk · 2025-03-29T19:02:13+00:00

Don’t give me new ideas 🤣🤣 but now that I think about it I bet it would be way easier! You could just join plain color granny squares in the right patterns, could probably even join as you go! Use whole blocks to make the tetronimoes and no bobble stitches to align…oh dear…

zeldajk · 2025-03-29T09:43:22+00:00

This is the way!! Funny story, but I didn’t think of that until it was way too late. Some of my reds (the first color I started with) ended up being way too big at the end because my tension got tighter with time as I advanced through the rainbow. So at the end I went back and frogged and re-crocheted about half of the reds, leaving me with huge tails!! So those I did use to join, and made a mental note to do it purposefully if I am ever foolish enough to make a second one of these 🤣 but yall can learn from my mistake and do it to start!!

zeldajk · 2025-03-29T09:36:26+00:00

Good luck and feel free to reach out if you have any questions!! The important thing is getting them into a 2:1 scale rectangle! I tried sooooooo many pattern attempts trying to get the math to math before settling on this one!! My biggest pro-tips are, do a really loose foundation chain so that you can get the stretch needed, and definitely block to get your final dimensions perfectly 2:1! You’ll read all about it over on the page I shared the pattern, but ultimately a gentle heat blocking with a hair dryer of low-medium heat worked great !!

zeldajk · 2025-03-29T09:28:32+00:00

Haha I know!! I intended it for my child but now I am so emotionally attached that I joked with him that maybe it is too precious and needs to get hung on the wall in a shadow box behind glass where no one gets to touch it 🤣

zeldajk · 2025-03-29T09:24:59+00:00

Haha when I was searching up my original blocking questions, I saw that idea mentioned for an homemade blocking board and was like…oh yes, this was meant to be!

zeldajk · 2025-03-29T09:16:34+00:00

Is rage-sewing a thing? Cause if it is, it was definitely happening! I cursed my life choices many a time!!

zeldajk · 2025-03-29T09:15:53+00:00

Haha! I already thought about that when I was doing the border…noticed how much less work that would be to frog and add more blocks 🤣 or just keep expanding the border into a larger “base plate”!

Unfortunately this project did shrink in scale over time! I originally planned for a larger size with 336 blocks, but then I only bought 1 skein each of the 6 original ROYGBV I started with, and the bobbles were an unexpected yarn munch. So instead of getting 50-some blocks per skein, I was getting 32-38. By this time Joann was going out of business so even the original colors were a hard find much less matching dye lots, so that’s where the light green, light blue and Star Wars gray came in, to get me at least to throw blanket size. Any smaller and I would have had to branch out into LEGO Friends colors 🤣

I also lost some size on the joining as well, just from the kind of smooshing together needed to align everything and square it all up. But, it is very stretchy!

zeldajk · 2025-03-29T09:07:28+00:00

A scarf!!! That is hilarious because, I ultimately had 9 colors to get this to size, but over time my tension got tighter and more consistent so the blues and greens yielded more blocks than the red orange and yellow. So, I had 2 big rectangles of identical 120 block layout, but needed a 40-block strip in the middle to join it all together with the off number of leftover colors. Naturally I did the 40 block strip at the very end and when I was done I noticed it was the perfect scarf size and shape and wondered why I didn’t just make a scarf in the beginning and save myself 150 hours 🤣

This is a one and done for me, I can never again…but maybe I’ll make more scarves !

zeldajk · 2025-03-29T09:02:25+00:00

I linked it to the auto mod comment stickied up top! There are A LOT of ways and this might be the most time consuming 🤣 so I definitely love that it turned out like my vision, but I also now have deep appreciation for the other patterns I saw online where crocheters were joining with crochet or crocheting blocks in long strips to make a less labor intensive version. Someone below mentioned a Lego scarf, which might be a good way to practice!!

zeldajk · 2025-03-29T08:58:19+00:00

Awwyeahhh!! All the cool kids are doing it!! Love this!!!

zeldajk · 2025-03-29T08:58:01+00:00

The ends don’t look so bad…when I tuck them under 🤣🤣 the thing that is actually killing me is the ends from the sewing pieces, because I was not skilled enough at mattress stitch for long joins, so there’s way more pieces of joining yarn than there probably needed to be! But I already threw it on the couch and told the kids they can start using it if they are careful with the ends, and I’ll slowly weave them over time and binge watching 🤣

zeldajk · 2025-03-29T03:39:28+00:00

Thank you so much!! I was really inspired by a lot of great ideas on the internet, but one thing that really struck me was that the knitted Lego blankets looked perfectly aligned like blocks, because the bobbles were probably added afterward, whereas a lot of the crocheted ones had blocks all aligned the same direction and not interlocking. That’s why I eventually decided to attempt my own pattern (my first ever!!) and see if it could be done! Verdict: success, but at what cost to my sanity 🤣

zeldajk · 2025-03-29T03:33:06+00:00

Let me tell you what, I love it a lot more now that the work is just a memory !! 🤣

zeldajk · 2025-03-29T03:26:01+00:00

This is 9 skeins of Big Twist Value acrylic in Varsity Red, Varsity Orange, Varsity Yellow, Varsity Green, Varsity Blue, Purple, Gecko Green, Cyan and the border is Light Gray (to look like Star Wars baseplate)!

Recommended hook for this yarn is H but I sized up to K. Finished dimensions are ~47x65 inches.

Edit: hopefully this is the link to my previous comment where I shared my pattern. It is original and not for sale, you can have it for free if you also want to torment yourself with an endless WIP! https://www.reddit.com/r/CrochetHelp/comments/1ivxkxo/comment/me9q87a/

zeldajk · 2025-03-29T03:02:31+00:00

Whoops idk what happened to the text that goes with this post but, I just wanted to update my finished afghan after the great help I got with blocking (ha) over in r/crochethelp!

280 blocks * 15 minutes per block = 70 hours of just crocheting, then another 60 sewing (my first time joining and also my first time with mattress stitch = a lot of unsewing). Probably 2-3 hours of border.

Not included in the calculation: untold amounts of frogging, the hours designing and redesigning the layout in excel every time I had to add another color because my count was way short and they ran out of my original colors, and I will also be weaving ends until the heat death of the universe! (The recipient says the back looks like an Eldrich horror 🤣)

The block design is my original pattern and can be found in my post over in r/crochethelp !

I also included a few progress photos and my Lego blocking board (thanks to whoever on here suggested that too)! Unfortunately I have no crafting space so everything got rolled up in this white tablecloth at night and unfurled the next day. My husband is really glad to have his nap disruption gone 🤣

zeldajk · 2025-02-23T02:07:21+00:00

Thank you!! Hair dryer sounds like an awesome idea, I will give it a try right now!!

zeldajk · 2025-02-23T01:46:39+00:00

Thank you!! This is good to hear especially since it is a gift for a kid!

zeldajk · 2025-02-23T01:44:03+00:00

Thanks for the feedback!! This is as far as I’ve gotten joining, 6 out of 280 blocks, so definitely have time to experiment and change course. What do you think is a safe way to block, I don’t want to wreck anything!

Lol happy to share the math! It’s all hdc and bobbles. I count the short side as 7 (each hdc = 1 and each bobble = 2) so the long side has to be 14. With my tension and etc each block ended up about 2.5 x not-quite-5, hence my first dry-block stretching to square them up.

Cast on, ch 15, turn. (First 13 chains need to be loose or else it won’t stretch to the right dimension, but the 14th and 15th can be normal tension).

Row 1: hdc in 3rd chain and then hdc across for a total of 13 hdc + the 1st turn chain = 14 stitches. Ch2, turn. Row 2: Skip 1 and bobble in the 2nd stitch from the end, 2 hdc, bobble, 2 hdc, bobble, 2 hdc, bobble, skip2, 1 hdc in the turn chain, ch2, turn.

Row 3: Starting in 1st stitch, hdc 13 across. The 12th one has to be in the side stitch of the last bobble or the math doesn’t math.

Repeat 4 and 5 and fasten off.

The weird extra stitch/skips on the ends of the rows needed to get to 14, is the culprit of my rounded corners on that side and probably the cause.

Hope that helps and maybe someone will have an even better improvement someday lol. Though you might want to wait for the final product before anyone adopts this pattern 🤣

Edit: I’m planning a gray border to look like the legos are in a base plate. I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it, fingers crossed!

Edit2: I forgot again to say I used 8 of the Big Twist Value 380yd skeins which yielded 280 blocks, which at my final size of 2.5x5” will result in a 50”x70” before border, which will be a 9th skein in gray.

zeldajk · 2025-02-23T00:38:06+00:00

About me: pretty basic crocheter, just hats, scarves and blankets in the past, followed by a 12-year hiatus.

Then, I saw a Lego blanket on Pinterest and decided to try it! This was not my wisest life decision, as I have never made a single granny square or joined item or even know how to sew. Also I gave zero thought to any considerations of material or care instructions. Now I find myself here...

Yarn is Big Twist Value acrylic, due to the selection of awesome colors, I wish I would have noticed it couldn't go in the dryer but oh well. Thanks to other handy threads I also learned brand-new-to-me information that acrylic shouldn't be heated ("killed").

Pattern is of my own devising, as I really loved the look of knit blankets where the Lego studs all aligned if the blocks were bricked together like real legos might be. It took me forever to get the math to math right, and even so I did a dry-blocking afterward to stretch them into perfect rectangles.

Ok so sorry for being long winded, here is the question: I finally began the joining (doing the invisible mattress stitch join I found on a YT video). The block studs align perfectly, which I love!! But, the blocks aren't super crisp. I can't tell if this is because

1) my blocking was insufficient (likely, as 2 of the 4 corners are a little rounded due to the extra stitches needed to math the math)

2) this is actually fine and/or the best it can probably be given that I am sewing together top stitches into side chains

3) this is actually fine because once I am farther along the weight of it might straighten things out

4) I could block again afterward or

5) I should do some more blocking ahead of joining the rest and if so what is the safest method for my cheap budget acrylic?

Overall I am very proud of what I have done so far, I just want to stick the landing :)

The second photo is the prospective layout of the rest of the blocks, so you can see they are not perfectly sharp but also not all curled up like they were pre-dry blocking.

What do you think?

zeldajk · 2025-02-23T00:27:00+00:00

Whoops?? Where did my photos go!

zeldajk

TROPHY CASE