it's done! 144 squares crocheted all in a two-colour variation of a granny square and then seamed together in a baby blanket.
I had a lot of fun with this project and I also learned a lot along the way. Looking at the finished blanket, I can see how different my tension was for squares by how much they puff up after the seaming! This picture is after washing and drying, because first off, a blanket made over a year and a bit probably has a bunch of dirt on it and second, I don't want there to be any surprises if I tell the parents to toss it in the washer and dryer. I also lightly ironed but that didn't really stop the puffing.
I am extremely pleased with the design I chose for this - there were many variations in the running (and I had a little poll for it as well, here and on my discord) and in the end I went with a fun asymmetrical pattern that still had a lot of orderly lines to make me happy.
Also cannot believe that the colour lines could turn out this crisp - like I am shocked at the effect when they're arranged like this.
And now that I've made this, I do want to make something else with half square triangle crochet but not with cotton again because this was a pain to seam and it definitely has less stretch than wool would. Before this, I had bought yarn to make a cardigan from half square triangles and maybe I make that or I try for something else. We'll see.
This is what the backside looks like! the squares are joined with a slip stitch join through the back loops of the squares. It also worked out that there were 11 seams horizontally and vertically and I used 11 colours on this so I just used a different colour per seam and then did a final slip stitch edge all the way around.
And I finished it before the baby was born turned one year old! Look, it's fine, it's still much bigger than her. Finished dimensions are approximately 30"x30".
