Makings - Moorland Blanket

Now that is has been gifted, I can finally share my finished Moorland Blanket. 

But before I share the finished make, let's go back and look at it's journey from the beginning. You probably know by now that I always like to do this with my bigger projects!

I received this wool pack from my sister in law and parents in law at Christmas, but didn't get around to starting the blanket until the first week of February.

Once I had got a few rows in and could see where the waves were rising and falling, it became a nice simple make. One that didn't require TOO much concentrating.

Each colour is worked two rows at a time, and I worked out that it took about 20 minutes or so to do the two rows for each colour.

This was me working on it while waiting for James' S5 parent's night to begin. It had begun to get to the size where it keeps you cosy as you work here, which was handy as we sat outside in the not particularly warm February sunshine!

I'm not a big fan of greens and so it was great to move from the green/brown section of the blanket and onto all the purples.

Growing....

The colours look so lovely all together in a proper daylight photo. 

While we were away in Lewis in the first week of April, I finished the main colour stripes, sewed in  the ends - all 230 of them - and finished off the border, meaning that it took me just 2 months to complete this blanket, the quickest I have ever finished one before.

Then I took the completed blanket upstairs and laid it out on the bed Fraser (3) sleeps in at Granny's house, because the bedroom he and Ally share was far tidier than the one shared by Calum (14) and David (11), or James'. It also looked pretty good with the Thomas the Tank Engine duvet covers!

So here it is all finished...

It looks just like the colours on the moors, growing up from the greens and browns at the bottom, onto the purples of the heather, and then up to the blues of a summer sky at the top.

The border is nice and simple, and keeps the focus on the waves in the stripes. I followed the pattern for the border, except for the final round, which I changed to be just the same as the other rounds. I also kept the colours as they were in the pattern. Well, I thought I had. But when I got back home and was looking through my yarn pegs for another project, I realised that in my haste to grab the yarn for going on holiday I had picked up the ball of Pistachio yarn instead of Lime. They are pretty similar colours though, and I'm actually pleased with my little accidental swap as I prefer the Pistachio to the Lime!

We gave the blanket to my husband's sister yesterday for her birthday present.

She knew what she was getting, but hadn't seen the blanket since it was in it's very early stages, right back when it was all greens and browns.

Purple is her favourite colour. Can you tell that? She is also very outdoorsy and spends many weekends walking in the hills and moors, so it really is a perfect blanket for her

And it was perfect for keeping her cosy while barbecuing on a not quite warm enough for a barbecue Spring day yesterday.

But don't worry, she was only posing for a photo, and put it inside the house straight afterwards before it could be contaminated by barbecue smoke!

The moorland blanket pattern is by the very talented Lucy at Attic 24. You can find the blanket pattern here and you can buy the pack of yarn to make it here.

Makings - Crochet Minion Chocolate Orange Cosy Pattern

School finished for the summer here last week, which resulted in some very excited boys by the end of the week!

When I was searching for some inspiration for what I could make as an end of year present for the teachers, I was thinking along the lines of something like a crocheted apple, you know, for the old fashioned apple for your teacher.

 I came across a few patterns for apple cosies on Pinterest which, although cute, did make me wonder why exactly anyone would need an apple cosy?!

But then I remembered seeing a similar thing at Christmas time with Chocolate Oranges in them, and thought that this was a much more worthy use of a fruit cosy!

My final piece of inspiration came from that favourite of the boys - Minions!

I used this pattern here for the shape of the cosies, and just changed the colours to turn them from plain apple cosies into Minions! 

If you want to make one too then I used blue for rounds 1-6, yellow for rounds 7- 12, black for rounds 13-14, yellow again for rounds 15 -19 (the pattern only asks for 17 rounds but I felt it need the extra two to cover the orange nicely).

For the eyes I chained 2 using black, then into the first chain sc 4. Change to white and sc 2 into each stitch. Change to grey and {sc 2 into 1} sc1 all the way round. Finally sc 1 into each stitch, stitching only into the inside loops.

Make either 1 or 2 eyes depending on which type of Minion you want to make, then stitch on a cheeky wee mouth.

I had to take the photos of these cheeky chaps quite quickly because another little rascal was desperate to get his hands on them...

Which got me thinking that I should maybe make some more of these, but make them into complete ball shapes and then stuff them so that he is allowed to play with them!