Hey guys!
Sorry about the brief hiatus from the blog – I’ve been travelling to Scotland and also been spending a lot of time designing patterns – including the patterns for this post!
Anyway, this is the first look and attempt at some squares for my Dream SMP-inspired blanket! I chose to do Sleepy Bois first, because while it would have likely made more sense to do the Dream Team’s, I wasn’t happy with how Dream’s looks in the design and I haven’t managed to decide what to do with Bad’s just yet.
Sleepy Bois, though – that I can do.
Though what I will say is that these are my very first attempts at designing my own patterns and making blanket squares so I will probably end up redoing them to try and neaten them up or if I have another idea for the design of the square!
(Also – major shout out to wool woman for being so supportive of me starting this blanket and refusing to let me pay for a lot of the wool I got. She’s an absolute legend and I still feel very, very bad about having not paid full price)
Philza
Okay, so Phil’s square was the very first one I started with, even though it was actually the last of the Sleepy Bois squares that I designed.
I chose to do it first because I thought that it would be the easiest to get done quickly as a test and also because it doesn’t involve as many colours as some of the other squares I have planned (*cough* Ghostbur *cough*)
I based it off of a Hardcore Heart, though I had a lot of ideas for it which I may end up using a little later depending on how happy I am with this square as I go along – for example, I thought about doing a crow or a Phil bucket hat.
I ended up settling on the Hardcore Heart for now because it’s an iconic link to Phil, and also because it was more simple than some of the other designs, which I needed as the very first square I was doing.
I was in somewhat of a rush to get this done, as I wanted to get at least one square finished before I left for a long drive to Scotland and I needed to ensure that I had the dimensions of the squares right. So that’s likely an influence as to why it does look a little rushed.
Overall, I am pretty happy with how it turned out, though I will be the first to say that it is a little messy and the pattern needs a little adjusting to make it ‘cleaner’ and annoyingly it is very noticeably off centre – I honestly don’t know how I didn’t realise it before I started knitting that I had placed the heart wrong. So while I am pleased with it considering that it was a first attempt, I will almost certainly be redoing it at a later date.
Technoblade
Unlike with Phil’s square, where I had a lot of indecision about what I could do for it, Techno’s design was pretty obvious to me the moment that I started planning the blanket.
I had to do a crown, of course I did.
What took me the longest with doing Techno’s square was trying to get the shape of the crown right. And I didn’t manage it, it doesn’t look quite right to me at the moment, but as I’ve said I am planning on redoing a lot of the starting squares once I become more confident in my pattern-making abilities and having made this one up I can see what needs adjusting.
I started Techno’s after finishing Phil’s (and also after having had to speed run some chemistry-themed knitted goods for my brother – review pending lmao), though it was actually the first square that I had planned out – in general, not just out of the Sleepy Bois. That was likely thanks to it being very clear to me from the start what I wanted the square to be.
I finished knitting it the next day while in the car driving up to Scotland, which I think definitely had an effect on how the square turned out, but in general I am pleased with it. My main worry is about the yellow wool I used here for the crown – it doesn’t seem as strong as the other wool I used, so I think I’ve worked out a work-around for that issue so Techno’s blanket square will definitely be redone relatively soon!
Ghostbur
Before anyone says anything – yes, I know I should have done Wilbur before I did Ghostbur, but I’m honestly just lost as to what to do for Wilbur’s square. Ghostbur, on the other hand, was an easy decision.
This was probably the most infuriating square that I’ve made so far. There’s four different shades of blue in this block of blue and after having finished it and studied it for a while, I’ve decided that when I redo it (because I definitely need to redo it) I’m going to search for darker shades of blue.
I based my Ghostbur square off of blue dye, though I did briefly consider making a Friend square – I think I still will, but it will come at a later date, one I have more of the SMP members done. While I do think that it looks a lot like Ghostbur’s Blue, it was an absolute nightmare to knit because of how many different shades I was using – it was actually a relief to get to the block yellow on the other side! It didn’t help, either, that I knit the entirety of the square on my drive to Scotland.
I will also say that I took the opportunity of knitting these blanket squares on a long drive to listen to “Songs From the SMP” by Derivikat on repeat. “Blue” pops off, dudes, I love that song so much. I also miss Ghostbur more than I realised before.
When I redo it, I don’t know if I’ll look for another type of yellow wool, because I really do want the square to be yellow (for obvious reasons) but I had the same issue that I had with Techno’s with worrying about the strength of the wool. I will definitely look for some darker shades of blue as well.
Tommy
Again, it was pretty obvious what I had to do for Tommy’s square – I had to make his discs.
It was actually a nightmare trying to get the design to something that I was happy with. I based it off of the iconic image of Mellohi and Cat that you always see in association with Tommy. But it took me hours to get the proportions right, especially for the coloured areas inside the discs.
But I am genuinely really happy with how it turned out, please ignore how the sides pinch in, it’s because I carried a lot of wool across the back of the square. (If/when I redo it, I’m going to be more careful about that!)
I also want to say in a very nerdy knitting type of way that I ADORE the red wool used for the background of the square. It’s incredibly soft (as soft as the yellow was) but also felt like the strongest of the backgrounds that I used. I think I also nailed the tension for the background here, which I didn’t do as well for the other squares, so that definitely helped!
The one part that I was upset about with this square is the colour I used for Cat, I thought the greens I used would be fine, but I definitely need some darker greens. Though as that was my only real concern for the moment, I’m going to shelf Tommy’s and leave it as a redo when I have ample time.
So yeah! These are the first few squares I’ve made for my long-term project of a Dream SMP-inspired blanket! While I have a load of squares planned and a couple more already designed, I’m going to take a step away from the blanket for a few days in favour of getting the blog sorted out a little more and actually designing some more of the squares and coming up with ideas for the members that I haven’t thought of yet. And also because I’ve got a load of animal patterns that I really, really want to try out.
I have a lot of plans for the blanket – while originally it was just going to be a square for every character, I decided that I also wanted to try to show the links between characters on the blanket as well, so I want to do a square for the Sleepy Bois as a collective, an Emerald for Phil and Techno’s friendship, something relating to the Crime Boys for Wilbur and Tommy and things like that!
If you have any ideas about what you think would be a good square or any suggestions as to how to improve the blanket then comment them below! Or comment on the post on my Instagram (@Knitting_With_Norbert hmu) or send me a DM there! But I’m really excited to make a start on the blanket and I hope that you guys are excited to see the progress as well!
I hope you’re all well!
Freddie 🐸
Knitting With Norbert 