Uber Epic Gamer Squares!

I have been inspired to start a new project. Though i kinda shocked myself, its another blanket! Im hoping that this one wont be nearly as daunting as the one I made for my niece (BORN OCTOBER 10 BY THE WAY!!!) being as how this one is not all the same colors and just one pattern. This will be something entirely new!

This project was inspired by Alicia1018 on Ravelry.com. The squares seem simple enough. A single crochet- only 30x34 square with a few color changes to make video game characters! SO in downloading her patterns, Darryl and I see that she used a pattern maker to base hers off of. So we went and downloaded it to make out own! It was cute, he found all these other old 8bit characters we loved growing up, took my laptop and made it his job to plot them out for me to crochet! I really enjoy that he is involved in my hobby. It may only seem a little bit but still. It makes me feel this is OUR project. Not just mine.

In his search for 8bit characters, he came across a few that were made with purler beads. This sparked intrest for him as well. Not only are they one bead per pixel, but they make a GREAT pattern base for my crochet as well! So while I was visiting with my mom and dad, he went to out local craft store and bought some purler beads. We have made 3 coasters since. It just took us forever


But these color changes are not so easy, you see... Some rows call for only ONE stitch after a color change.... how does one do this while making that stitch secure? Not only that, how about making it not unravel in the wash??? Well I figured I would outsmart this technique. I made a SOLID 30x34 and began to follow the color change pattern by using the embroidery method. That came out looking like THIS before i got sick of it.