Shroom Blanket

On a whim one day about a year and a half ago I decided "I want to crochet." I don't even think I knew what crocheting was, but I knew I wanted to do it. And so I did. I went out, bought the cheapest pack of hooks I could find and three skeins of yarn. I got home and asked myself, "now what?" I looked up the basics of crocheting and made myself two hideous headbands. Having that down and feeling pretty good about myself I decided that I needed to go for something bigger. And what is better for a first crocheting project than a full size blanket? (I am pretty brilliant, if you hadn't noticed.)

So I ponder on what it is that I really love and would want to spend many hours on. It immediately comes to me. I love geeky things. I love old school Mario. (This was also during a period of my life where I played much Super Mario Bros Wii with my roommate.) I will make a Mario related blanket. And as an added bonus- 8 bit characters are supposed to be blocky, so I can make it out of granny squares and sew them all together! It will be a piece of cake! 

What came next was hours of crocheting and sewing over the next six months (I had some problems with my attention span at the time.) I went back and forth on what I wanted to do, how big I wanted the blanket to be, and how true to the original game it should be. What I decided on about halfway through was that I wanted to make four mushrooms: 1-up, super, mega, and mini. 

And so, six months, 600 squares, and 120 hours later... I finished! I decided on more compressed mushrooms because I didn't want the blanket to be 12x12. I think they're kinda cute though.

Pretty happy with the final product, especially for my first attempt at anything crochet. :D