Hello everybody! I hope that you all are doing well! I am so incredibly excited to share with you my 2017 Calendar Blanket! This is a pattern written by the YouTuber Jayda InStitches. I will leave links to her YouTube along with the free video tutorials that I followed at the end of this post.
Back in 2019, which seems honestly seems like it was just yesterday, I had the ambitious idea of creating two of Jayda’s calendar blankets. My plan was to follow her 2017 blanket pattern month by month, and if I wanted to work ahead I was able to as all the videos for the patterns were already released. And I was to also work on Jayda’s calendar blanket for the year 2019, which was a folk art blanket. I will have a post for this blanket once I finish it! If you are still a bit confused about this process, don’t fret. It’s honestly quite simple but it can be confusing from an outstanding perspective. Every month Jayda would release a new section of the blanket, hence the “calendar” part of the blanket. These are year-long crochet-alongs.
I was very consistent with my 2017 calendar blanket. I was able to keep up with it till August’s square. Then I stopped. I don’t remember why. I don’t know if I had gotten bored of it or if it was because of a family member passing… Either way, I took a break and stuffed the blanket away in my closet. On December 2 through the 23rd I was able to complete the blanket! Something to take note of was that during my time, there was a blizzard! At some points, the real feel was -35 degrees Fahrenheit!! It’s a safe bet to say I was betting on my blanket projects to help keep me warm.
Throughout the blizzard, I sewed on August’s square. This square was already made, it just needed to be sewn on. I also crocheted and sewed September, November, October, and December’s squares, along with the additional two-row border! Going into this project, I really didn’t know how many squares I needed to make, or where I left off at. I think that I was able to finish this quite fast! I knew that I wanted to finish this particular blanket and get started on my 2019 folk art blanket. Throughout the blizzard, I was able to finish my 2017 blanket and that was it for me!
Something that I really liked about this blanket is how unique it is. I like how you’re able to look at it and recognize that this particular square is associated with this particular month. For example, you can look at a snowman, a teddy bear, and a leprechaun hat with a rainbow and can infer that the three squares are January, February, and March.
If you are a beginner crocheter, I think that this pattern would be great for you to explore this craft with. The blanket looks complicated as if it was a lot of work but in reality, Jayda teaches you how to do everything step by step. The most studious thing about this blanket was all the sewing and if you do it month by month, as the blanket was originally intended, it wouldn’t be that bad at all. One of the fun things that I enjoyed about this blanket was being able to choose the colors of every square and the design of my ornament (for December's square). If you are feeling iffy about making this, I would recommend taking a look at the playlist that holds the free video tutorials (that I also have linked at the bottom).
Thank you for reading and I hope you have a great day! If you end up making the blanket make sure to let me know as I would love to see it! Also, I’m sure Jayda would love to see it as well!!
Emilia
Emilia’s Crochet Studio
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Jayda InStitches YouTube Channel:
2017 Calendar Blanket Video Tutorial Playlist:
Tag @emilias.crochet and @jayda_institches on Instagram with your blanket!