"Seam As You Go" knitting Cubism

Im doing the coolest blanket for one of my nephews for Christmas this year.

Its called "Cubism" by Woolly Thoughts

Basically, you make all these blocks and seam them together,(eww) and add partial blocks to make the blanket. Excellent, very well written pattern. You should do it.
Here's a shot of my first block. It went off without a hitch really. This first one mind you.

Well, because I cant leave anything alone.....I decided I was gonna seam the rest of the blocks together as I went. This, like anything took some thought because things are going in different directions and you can just do the simple pick up and start knitting off of your picked up stitches. You have to join the two pieces together on each row.

So I looked through the other projects looking for others that have done this blankie and had the same thoughts as I did.

Sadly, there are only 11 projects!! Ok, everyone stop what your doing, and go and cue up this blanket. Everyone needs a blanket and a cool one like this one would be even better! Especially if you have a younger teenager your just itchin to give a blanket to! Not to mention the fact that its all done in garter stitch, which means some real good mindless knitting. Besides, now would be a good time to start those Christmas gifts...don't hit me.

Anyway, there was only one person that was in tuned with what I was thinking about doing and so I wasted no time bugging her in Ralvery to disscuss her methods. Thank you clmitaly!
She directed me to the Fall 2010 issue of Interweave Knits that had a pictorial of "Seam As You Go" by: Heather Oppetti. This was done to demonstrate how she puts her Tamarix Quilt together. (you should check that one out too) I went and pulled out my issue and it was a bit confusing to follow. So, I went to my buddy Gooooogle, and found a YouTube on the technique. YAY!!

Seam as you go - Part 1

MUCH easier to follow! And so I did....with some problems at first. But being the figuring out kind of person, I umm.....figured it out. 

To put this technique in use with the Cubism blanket, I would have to also do my increases in addition to the stuff she says to do. This didn't work. I couldn't get it tight enough. 

So, I decided to do my increases on the 3rd stitch in on the joining side. (clear as mud?) This worked. 

But then.......

When I laid it out and gazed at my work, it occurred to me that the direction of my rows were not the same direction of the original red block. 

rip rip rip. yes, im that anal. However, this was a blessing in disguise!

I decided I needed to do the first half of the block and then begin joining on the second half. As I was knitting the first half, I was thinking about this joining thing the whole time and realized: Not only would joining beginning on the second half put the direction of the rows going the same as the original, but it would also make things easier to join up due to already having stitches on the needle. AND....It wouldn't be as hard to make things tight because I was doing a decrease (tight anyway)and not an increase(the neighboring stitches tend to steal the increases' yarn when no one is looking and things are pulled a bit.) 

The skies opened up and I swear I heard angels singing when this came to me. After many false starts and much more ripping than I've told you about here....you understand my excitement.

So I got done with the first half and was ready to begin joining. 

But first, I needed to figure out how many stitches I was gonna need and pick up and without giving the pattern away, this came out to pick up 3 [skip one, pick up 3] repeat to end. YAY! The math is over!! lol 

I also decided to try to do my decreases one stitch in, and that worked pretty well I think! 

So, I've done a few rows and wanted to show you what I have so far. It's really coming out to be pretty easy, and looks nice. The join is a bit wonky because of having to pull tightly, I hope things relax and are a lot nicer once its washed. And then theres that whole "after I've done almost all of them, I'll get the hang of it" thing. Maybe I dont have to pull as tightly as I am. I'll try it. 

Here's what it looks like from the front...notice the wonky stitches Im hoping, like so many things in life, "will come out in the wash" 

And here's a shot from the back. 

Well Im off to work on it some more. 

I hope this helps and I do encourage you to try this method of "Seam as you go" Its really not that hard after a while...just like so many things in life. And go and get this pattern and get on it! 

TTFN