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.

New Year Makes

Just like I did last year. the first thing I made in 2017 was a gift for my little niece's birthday. She turned 2 in the second week of January and I had planned what I was going to make her for her birthday since I had seen it in back in September. Although I hadn't started making it back then! 

Crochet Now magazine - the newest monthly crochet magazine on the UK market, and my current favourite one too - had a little series running, where the pattern for this little doll was released one month and then for the next few months there was a different outfit for the doll published.

I thought it was such a cute idea that I knew I had to make it for my niece. Actually, even if I hadn't had my niece to make it for, I may well have made it just for myself!

Just before Christmas when I was in Hobbycraft, I found a little red, spotty suitcase which I knew would be perfect for putting the doll and her little outfits in.

I started working on the doll on Hogmanay, and she was reasonably quick to make up. The most time consuming part were these cute ringlets. 

The dress below was in the October issue of the magazine and so had a pumpkin motif on it. Since I didn't think pumpkins were seasonal any more in January, I added a little heart motif instead.

I was ridiculously pleased with the fact that the pattern even included some little bloomers!

I'm pleased to say that my little niece loved the dolly as much as I did!

Once I had finished the doll I spent a week or two working on my Storytime Cross Stitch sampler - a much slower project than a crochet one, but such a cute one.

Alice in Wonderland and The Secret Garden are complete, and I'm now onto Sherlock. Those beautiful, fancy frames alone, without the picture in them, take between 3-4 hours of stitching time, and there are another 9 of them to do!

Now I've put that aside for a bit, though, to start on a new crochet blanket.

In November Lucy from Attic 24 shared a new colour combination that she had made up for a Crochet Along blanket she was planning to start in January. The colours are inspired by the moors, starting with the browns and greens at the bottom, onto the purples of the heather and then finishing with the blues of the sky. You can see Lucy's pictures of her inspiration here.

My husband's sister now traditionally buys me a yarn pack for Christmas each year, so I tagged her in a comment on Lucy's Facebook post and suggested these colours as this year's pack. She replied that not only was she happy to have my Christmas present sorted out so early on, but that she would love to have a blanket made in those colours if I ever had the time to do so.

So I thought, why not make this blanket and try and finish it in time to give her for her birthday, which is on Easter weekend. The last couple of blankets I've made have taken around 4 months, so the timing seems about right.

I started this at the weekend, and then had to restart it again after a couple of rows as I wasn't happy with how the 'wave' pattern was working, The starting chain was too tight and it didn't let the wave work properly. When I restarted it I used a foundation double crochet stitch rather than a starting chain. I almost always use a foundation stitch rather than a chain, especially for blankets that need a very long starting chain, for the very reason that I find the starting chains to be too tight, and also that a foundation double or treble stitch means that you get a good start on the project more quickly.

Second time around the wave is showing up quite nicely, and now that I have done a few rows of it and I can see where the stitches go to make the waves, it's all flowing very nicely.

And as a little bonus, it was lovely to receive a like on my Instagram photo of the start of my blanket from the queen of crochet!

Makings - Crochet Willow Square Blanket

Back in June I shared that I had put aside the Crochet Along blanket that I was working on in order to work on another secret project using these colours.

Clockwise from top left (All Stylecraft Special DK): 

Storm Blue, Duck Egg, Silver, Sherbet, Cloud Blue

(After looking at the colours for a while I decided not to include Cloud Blue, the bottom left colour.)

Well, now that the secret project has been gifted I can finally reveal what it was, and I have so been looking forward to sharing it as it is one of my most favourite makes ever. In fact, had it not been for such a special occasion and for such a special couple then I would have been so sorely tempted to keep it for myself and just find another gift instead!

In August my mum and dad celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary and so I wanted to be able to give them something special for it. 

I soon decided on making them a blanket, and in shades of blue so that it would fit in with their bedroom colour scheme. I knew what square I wanted to make as I had always wanted to make something with the Willow Square, which is from the book 200 Crochet Blocks. It's such a pretty square that I knew it would look amazing in a blanket.

At first I thought I would make the blanket using just the one colour, Stylecraft Special DK in Sherbet, and with each square edged in either Cream or Parchment. Since I couldn't decide which of the two colours to use I asked my Instagram friends for their advice and found that they couldn't decide for me either! Opinion was split almost exactly half and half in favour of each colour.

So I put off the border colour choice until joining time came.

Then when I went to the little yarn shop near the boys' school to buy more yarn in the colour I had chosen for the main square colour, I started playing about with adding some other colours in and that's how I ended up with the combination in the first photo. I had a photo of the wallpaper in my mum and dad's bedroom with me, sneakily sent by my youngest brother, and that inspired me to add in the other colours. I'm so glad that I went with that idea now!

The Willow Square is a lovely square to work on. Each round is different and so it never gets boring to make. Because each round is different, it took me about 10 squares to memorise the pattern. Once I had really got the hang of the pattern I decided to time myself and found that it took 20 minutes to do one square.

I started working on the blanket properly in June, and I had worked out that to make the blanket big enough for a double bed I would need 120 squares - 10 across and 12 down. I gave myself the target of 10 squares a week, which would see me finishing off the squares around August time. I also had to leave plenty time for joining and edging the blanket. 

 The wedding anniversary was in August, but my mum and dad were due to spend a few days down here in September when they returned from their anniversary cruise, so that was the deadline I gave myself to finish off the blanket.

Amazingly, I did actually finish off the squares by the end of August as planned, and the next decision was how to organise the squares.

I've never been very good at random patterns, my brain is a little too OCD and in need of order to be able to just put colours in a random pattern. This was why I had initially thought of making the blanket in one colour. But a quick google search found my perfect solution here -  a random granny square generator! It was just what I needed. I made up three different random combinations of the colours and then chose which of these I liked the best.

Once I had laid out my squares in the order suggested, I decided that I loved the colours so much together that I didn't want to border them in cream/parchment after all. My artist boy, James (16), who has an amazing eye for colour, agreed with me so that confirmed it for me!

Next, I bundled up each row and labelled them, ready for joining. 

I told you my brain was a little too organised and OCD! I'm not quite sure how it survives living in a houseful of boys!

Don't those colours look gorgeous all mixed up?

To join the squares I just double crocheted (US Single Crochet) them together, right sides together. First of all I joined all the squares horizontally and then I did the vertical joins.

For a border I chose border no 93 from the book Around the Corner, as I had seen it used on other blankets and thought it was the perfect pattern to go with the Willow Squares. I didn't do the final round of the pattern for the border though, as I thought it looked a little too spiky and I preferred the curved look of the second last round.

Finally I just had to sew in all the ends, and then the blanket was done, a couple of days before my mum and dad returned from their cruise!

Now, if you've stuck with me this far then you are probably keen to see the finished result, so without any further chat, here it is. From quite a few angles!

I laid it out on our bed, which is Kingsize so it doesn't quite reach the edges of ours.

I did have a little assistant with me while taking the photos...

The back of the blanket has a raised cream seam between the squares, which I think also looks quite nice, although I prefer the smoothness of the front.

Have you seen enough of it yet? 

I haven't, so here's a couple more!

One day I really must make one for ourselves.
 Although for a Kingsized bed it will take even more than 120 squares and 4 months to make!