Baby Mickey Blanket

The making of one of my graphed blankets. The first step would be deciding on an image for your blanket. I've done Elmo, Winnie the Pooh, and Tinkerbell among others. So this blanket which was intended for a fellow employee as a baby shower gift. ( She was transferred stores before the shower) Her theme of course was Disney Babies and she was having a boy, hence baby mickey. I also knew the babies room was in white and cream with the Disney decals. So with a few pictures to work off of I sketch the design on white paper. If you cant put together a decent sketch the best thing to do is find a coloring book or coloring pages online of your image (less details and interior textures to deal with). Then use tracing graph paper over it to plot out the image. It isn't easy, in fact making the pattern is much more difficult then actually crocheting it. If you need help with trying to make your own pattern your welcome to message me. After plotting the image I use colored pencils or highlighters to mark out the color areas. The fewer the better. The more color changes the more complicated the crochet will be. Once colored and the boarder established I begin counting. Noting on the pattern how many stitches are in each line saves you time later and can help you keep track of where you are on the pattern. I counted in the colored areas as well as from the image to the boarder. Keeping accurate count while stitching is important your whole picture can be thrown off and you may note actually see it till lines later and then it all has to be ripped out and fixed. Your lines are also numbered. Odd on the right, even rows on the left. (Beginning chain goes left to right , so first row goes right to left, and so on) Now you have your graphed image.

Now you can begin planning the actual blanket. Each box on the graph is a single crochet (sc) as you work from side to side you will change colors but not fasten of until and area is done. For example the first and second rows show a color change to from your background color to white for his gloves. There are two separate areas of white that will overlap rows so therefor you will need to small balls of white yarn. When I say small I'm estimating a ball perhaps 2 in in diameter. Medium would be 3 in and a large ball would be 4 or more. Yarn must be separated into balls according to how many areas of the color you will be working at a time. Back to the example, you would color change to white for your 16th sc, when you change back to your background color you drop the white strand on the wrong side of work and continue with Bg color on the even row back when the color changes back to white you drop the bg color and pick the white back up. In places where there is only 1 or 2 stitches you can sc over the color to carry it past to its color square. So the first few rows would use 2 small white balls, 2 large bg color because these will continue along either side and one very small bg color to work up between arms. Adding other colors as they come into graph. You should scan entire pattern to make sure you have enough balls before hand. There are notes scattered around the outside of my graph as I calculate this information. There is a color list for each different area you must choose a color for. Then there are strike marks next to the colors to mark how many balls of each I will need. left to right my graphed picture is 55 squares I decide to add 4 st on each side to give a sufficient boarder area so 55 +4left+4right+1turn ch= a starting ch of 64. sc across will be 63 stitches by (starting image 43 rows high adding 4 rows at top and bottom for boarder space 43+4+4=52rows (+starting ch) 52 rows. Your ready to actually crochet now!

We chose Off white as our BG color and outlined the panel in the blues from mickeys suit. This outline served another purpose as well. After planning and completing the center panel you must decide how you will add the area to finish off the blanket. You very well could have continued in rounds of color in whatever pattern until it measures an appropriate size. But I've decides I'm going to add blocks to the outside of the blanket and I'm going to join them with a single crochet to create a ridge between the blocks to define them even more. On the back of the graph is more of my planning doodles.

The squares must of course fit around the panel and be of similar size. The extra outlining was to enlarge center panel size so the squares would fit properly. This is difficult and can be a pain so if you get a blanket and squares perfect or have one already planned out for you, enlarge your center panel to fit your exiting pattern. For example you have in front of you a pattern in which the 20 squares specified fit around a 65 st by 76 row panel. If you finished panel was 63 st x 74 rows you could add 2 rounds of either the bg color or a contrasting color to enlarge it to the panel size you know what size to make squares for. Or say your panel when finished was 63x66 You would first add 4 rows to the top and 4 rows to the bottom and then one round to bring it up to size.
In case you cant tell the blocks are 10 @ 20 st by 23 rows of sc and 10 @ 23 st by 23 rows of sc. The 20x23 are the 5 inside blocks on the top and bottom and the 23x23 are the entire left and right side.
Before we get there let's not forget to secure are loose ends. As you finish crocheting a color area  you should detach the yarn leaving about 3 inches to weave in. As you go from side to side your yarn strands will twist and tangle for more complicated designs this can be a real problem. I mange the best I can and when I cant pull a strand anymore because of a tangle I cut it and pull the ball out of the mess and attach it anew. But once your finished the wrong side of your work will look like this. I've become an expert and hiding tails.

Next is planning out the block colors and once made you lay everything out and check once more to make sure it all fits.

 Once you have everything laid out and perfect I recommend you pick the blocks up in reverse order your planning on working them so the next block is always right on top. Then join all your blocks. I'd start from once side and join all blocks to panel going around rectangle then go back and join each block side. I joined my blocks with white. And here is the finished blanket. I'll have to try to remember to measure it and add the final dimensions here.