Rainbow Candy Diagonal Granny Stripe

I had been planning to make my niece a "groovyghan" for Christmas.    Luckily I remembered that eleven year olds are VERY particular little people, and decided that I should rather discuss the project with her before plunging in.

A good thing too!

She wanted stripes - no blocks.   Very particular stripes in fact - "they must not be fat, also not dizzy stripes" (thin stripes).   No frills or flowers.  I had also planned to make it for her bed - she wanted a square blanket to snuggle under while watching DVD's.  Alrighty then! - as I said - good thing I asked!

We added a couple of colours to those I had already selected and I got started on the project HERE early in October. 

I used the Diagonal Granny Stripe - a firm favourite of mine.    You can find a how to in my Diagonal Granny Stripe Infinity Scarf post

This Diagonal Granny Stripe had to be square - this means to you keep on increasing on both sides until the outer edges of the triangle measure the length and width you wish your finished project to be.   Then decrease on both sides until your last cluster.

I used candy pink, fuschia, peach, red, lemon, lime, mint, jade, aqua, turquoise, blue, denim, lilac and purple for my colour stripes:

On the increase half I used white to separate the colour bands.   A few rows before I started decreasing I introduced grey between the colour bands.     

Once I started decreasing I began using grey as the separator colour and phased out the white over the first few rows.  

For the border I did a double row of shells:

I crocheted a two tone border - white on the white diagonal (2 sides) and grey on the grey diagonal (2 sides):

We had fantastic weather on Friday.     Hot as ...., but beautiful clear blue skies.    Perfect weather for a  bit of photo fun.  

Bundled the blankie onto one of our shaded walkways:

 Posed it on the stairs leading up to my rose garden:

Rolled up under the Lapa's thatch:

Hanging it from the beams:

Folding it in different ways:

Posing it here and there:

By then I was rather hot and bothered.    Took a lovely swim and poured myself some homemade ginger beer with lots of ice and lemon slices.   Sat myself down poolside to contemplate my Christmas List (one down - way to many to go!!)

Didn't get much done yesterday - "meltingly" hot again = hanging out with hubby and my youngest (who turned 21 recently!!!) - swimming, sipping iced tea and ginger beer, nibbling on finger food, and watching movies in the lovely cool family room (until four in the morning!).     Such a relaxing, perfect day!

Going to make brunch in a few minutes and after that I suppose I should go back to contemplating that Christmas List!