My mistake in yarn selection

Okay, another lesson learned. I did the soft shell baby blanket as you can see in my last post. I got the pattern from the Caron website. I did not however use Caron yarn. I used Bernat Softee brand. It's not because I don't like Caron products, it's just that the store I shop at the most didn't have that brand in stock. I didn't think that it would make that much of a difference. I was wrong. The Bernat yarn was softer, yes, but also thinner than the Caron yarn I think. This difference made the blanket smaller than it was suppose to be. Though I was happy with the final product it could have been better.

Also because the yarn was thin it made the project, in my opinion, take longer and up the difficulty level because of the joining you have to do. It was hard for me to get the hook in those tiny spaces some times.

I wasn't going to do this pattern again. At least not for a while but my friend is having twins and really liked it so I'm giving it another try. Her babies are not due until October so this gives me plenty of time to finish these blankets if I get to frustrated. However, I've started today and things are going much smoother. I think this is because I am using Red Heart super saver yarn since the babies are due during the colder months I can get a way with using a bulkier yarn. Of course I will post pictures when I'm done.

Also like I mentioned in the other post: I'm not sure if it's because I used different yarn than what the pattern was written for but the stripe panel is longer than the shell panel so I had to "make" it fit together. So we will see how the panels will come out with these 2 new blankets.

Update!!! The stripe panel seem to always be longer than the shell panel. Also using thicker yarn really does make a big difference!