Crazy Quilt/Afghan

I can't believe I haven't shared this with you before.  I have a list of Blog Ideas and this idea has been sitting there for about eight months and I haven't posted it!  I actually had to go searching for the pictures.  Now that I have you all annoyed and impatient to see what it is, let me warn you that I apparently only took two pictures.

I wanted to make something awesome for my sister Chloe for Christmas (yes, last year) and so I thought I'd try to make a crazy quilt.  Except I can't quilt, so out of crocheted squares.  I had tons and tons of little odd scraps of yarn, so I started crocheting them into squares and rectangles.  When I had a pile, I put them on the floor in a pleasing pattern and whip stitched them together with either the end of the yarn or some yellow yarn.  At first I was hoping for a lap blanket, but when I realized how easy it was and how quickly it was going, I decided to go for something that could cover a whole person.

I worked my way down and across from the top left corner until it was as wide as I wanted, and then I worked down from there.  I basically made a pile of pieces any shape and size, laid them on the floor with the rest of the blanket until I liked how it looked, and then stitched them in.  Towards the end, I had to make maybe about 10 pieces a certain size to finish off nicely, but that was very simple.

Finally, I made a simple green border all the way around - just single crochet.

And good news - she loved it!  And I think she still does, though how I'm ever going to top that this Christmas, I have no idea!

Here's the full blanket - laid out diagonally on our bed.  (Ours is a queen, if that gives you an idea of the size of this blanket.)

And here's a close-up (complete with annoying camera spot) of one section.  You can see that not everything fit perfectly.  Some squares got pulled wonky like this one.  At first it bothered me, but it all kind of works together to make it more crazy.

The fun part is that I used all different kinds and colors of yarn.  There's fun fur, cotton, acrylic, and even some angora-knock-off stuff.  We also had fun going through and seeing what pieces we recognized from the yarn's original purpose.  (Hey, there's Mom's hat! And Grandma's scarf! And those really ugly wrist warmers you made!)

Chloe decided to try making her own.  I think she's probably finished by now because I haven't seen her working on it in a while and that was like six months ago.  Hers is way prettier than this one.

Do you have leftover scraps of yarn?  Go try your own!  It's really fun!

Do you have any other project ideas for leftover scraps?  Share them in the comments!

Love and Lemonade,
Leah Joy

P.S.  Since it's about the end of August, it's time for me to start planning Christmas presents!