I've crocheted five blankets in the past year, and three blankets during the year before that, which adds up to a lot of blankety goodness here in the Attic as well as rather an impressive stash of left over yarn in my studio. When I was making my colourblock cushion last year, I wound some of my Stylecraft Special DK yarn into small yarn cakes and popped them into a clear plastic tub. Oh, it pleased me so much to create this yarn-palette to dip into! Since then, I've been adding to the yarn cake stash whenever any left over balls reach that straggly birds nest stage. Using my yarn winder
As well as my tub of small yarn cakes, I've also got a large pink tub full to the brim with balls of yarn that haven't quite reached the birds nest stage. All in all, I do have quite a sizeable stash of Stylecraft Special DK sitting around in tubs, and limited space in my studio to store it all. So what's a girl to do when her tubs runneth over? Embark on a gloriously colourful stash-busting project, that's what!
I did the exact same thing about three or four years ago when I made my Granny Patchwork blanket, do you remember that one? I used 23 colours in that blanket which was made up of 144 simple granny squares. Over the years it's become an outdoor kind of blanket, accompanying us on many picnics, beach trips and caravan holidays, and I love it dearly.
This time around, I thought it would be fun to make a very similar blanket (12 x 12 granny squares, with a deep border to frame them nicely), but with a much more considered colour placement. My original Granny Patchwork Blanket was deliciously random and great fun to make, but there is something very pleasing about making a palette of colours work to a very specific pattern. I had been mulling over how to tackle this blanket for a few weeks, when suddenly an idea struck out of the blue. Ping!!! There it was - a beautifully clear image projected onto the wall of my Creative Mind. Once I could visualise it I simply couldn't leave it alone, like an itch that needed a jolly good scratch. Within minutes I'd abandoned what I was doing and off I went on the start of another blanket journey....
I LOVE love LOVE planning blankets in a low tech way, no computer programmes or spreadsheets for me. Usually I'll use my yarn pegs to plan but as I needed more than one of each colour for this blanket I had to use snippets of yarn instead. It took ages to create this line of yarn snips, working my way through my tubs and gathering little lengths of every colour I had at my disposal. Forty four in total. FORTY FOUR!!!!!
My idea was to try and create something of a colourwash which would sweep through the squares, merging and blending the colour groups row by row. I spent a long time grouping and re-grouping the colours until I had 12 rows, each containing 6 colours. I fiddled and faffed with these yarn snippets all afternoon until finally I had it all sorted.....
.....ta-dah! One blanket all planned out and ready to roll, talk about total creative satisfaction! It only took half a day, not bad really, considering the large amount of manual labour involved. I taped the whole thing down onto a long piece of paper and hang it on the wall of my studio, thinking that now the itch had been scratched I would mull it over for a while until I was ready. Turns out, the creative itch carried on itching and with a weekend crochet retreat on the immediate horizon, off I went.........
During my two day crochet weekend I managed to complete the first two rows (above). Now I would really like to explain a little bit about my method here, for those of you who might like to try something like this for yourselves. The granny squares are simple, five round squares (I'll give you the written pattern at the end of this post), joined using the fabulous join-as-you-go method. This involves joining the squares using slip stitches during the final round of crochet, and there is already a full tutorial which you can find here on my blog {JOIN-AS-YOU-GO granny squares}.
Arranging the colours is the really fun bit for me - I do something that I call "Planned Random" which in essence means that I have a basic plan in place before I start (ie in this case I know which six colours will be used for each row), but the exact placement of these colours within the rows is made instinctively as I work.
So lets talk about the first half of the blanket and see how the colours have been used....
ROW ONE :: the first row was made using six shades of blue/green yarn (Sherbet, Sage, Cloud Blue, Duck Egg, Storm Blue, Aspen, 2 squares of each colour to make twelve in total). These colours were randomly placed as I worked. Once that first row was complete, I then chose two shades to be carried forward to the next row, which would have four new shades of blues added to make up 6 in total.
ROW TWO :: row two contains Cloud Blue and Storm Blue (carried forward from row one), with Petrol, Denim, Aster and Turquoise added.
In the above photo, you can see me starting row three.
ROW THREE :: after row two was completed I chose Denim and Aster to carry forward. Once these were attached, I joined in the remaining four colours (Violet, Bluebell, Wisteria, Lavender, 2 squares of each colour), placing them randomly as I went.
Can you begin to see how the "carrying forward" of colours row by row helps to create the colourwash effect? Green/blue, blue, then blue/purple.....
ROW FOUR :: the above photo shows row four in progress. Lavender and Wisteria were carried forward from row three, then I chose Parma Violet, Pale Rose, Clematis and Grape to join in, which begins to merge the purples with the dusky pinks.
ROW FIVE :: oooo meging dusky pinks with bright pinks and purples here - Pale Rose and Grape were carried forward from row four, with Magenta, Plum, Fondant and Raspberry joined in.
I absolutely love the join-as-you-go method for making granny square blankets, it's so easy and quick, and means that a blanket begins to form right in front of your eyes as you make the very first squares.
ROW SIX :: Raspberry and Plum were carried forward from row five, then I chose Bright Pink, Shrimp, Pomegranate and Lipstick to join in, which begins to merge the bright pinks, purples and reds.
And that's half a blanket made - I wonder what you think?? Do you like it so far? Do you like how the colours are working? If you look back at my original plan pinned to my wall, you will get an idea of how the rest of the blanket will look as the colours change from pinks to reds, then oranges, through golden yellows and fresh greens, and finally right back to the blue/greens where I started.
Here is the pattern I'm using for my granny squares - note that there are NO CHAIN SPACES around the sides, just chain-2 in the corners. This keeps the squares nice and tight and the holes quite small. I'm using a 4mm hook and my squares are measuring 9.5cm after five rounds (I crochet quite tightly).
SIMPLE ONE-COLOUR GRANNY SQUARE
chain 4, join to make a ring.
ROUND 1
Chain 3 (counts as 1 tr), 2tr’s into ring, chain 2, 3 tr’s, ch 2, 3tr’s, ch 2, 3 tr’s, ch 2, sl st into 3rd ch of initial ch 3 to close round. Do not fasten off.
ROUND 2
Chain 3 (counts as 1 tr), then work 2tr’s into the first corner space. NO CHAINS ALONG SIDES!
{So in next corner space, work 3 tr’s, ch 2, 3 tr’s}.
Repeat between {} twice more, then in the very first corner space work 3 tr’s, ch 2, then sl st into 3rd ch of initial ch 3 to close round. Do not fasten off.
ROUND 3
Chain 3 (counts as 1 tr), then work 2tr’s into the first corner space. NO CHAINS ALONG SIDES!
3tr’s into side space, {3 tr’s, ch 2, 3 tr’s into corner space, 3tr’s into side space}
repeat between {} twice more, then in the very first corner space work 3 tr’s, ch 2, then sl st into 3rd ch of initial ch 3 to close round. Do not fasten off.
ROUND 4
Chain 3 (counts as 1 tr), then work 2tr’s into the first corner space. NO CHAINS ALONG SIDES!
3tr’s into each side space, {3 tr’s, ch 2, 3 tr’s into corner space, 3tr’s into each side space}
repeat between {} twice more, then in the very first corner space work 3 tr’s, ch 2, then sl st into 3rd ch of initial ch 3 to close round. Do not fasten off.
ROUND 5
Repeat as for round 4, using the join-as-you-go method to join with slip stitches as you work the round. Fasten off and darn in ends.
I'll be sure to write an update to give you colour info for rows 7-12 once they're complete. I'll also be able to give you the complete colour placement for all 144 squares once the whole thing is finished. In the meantime, here is a list of the forty four colours I'm using to make my colourwash blanket. The yarn is Stylecraft Special DK ::
1. Storm Blue 2. Cloud 3. Duck Egg 4. Sherbet 5. Sage 6. Aspen 7. Denim 8. Aster 9.Petrol 10. Turquoise 11. Violet 12. Bluebell 13. Lavender 14. Wisteria 15. Pale Rose 16. Parma Violet 17. Clematis 18. Grape 19. Raspberry 20. Magenta 21. Plum 22. Pomegranate 23. Bright Pink 24. Fondant 25. Shrimp 26. Lipstick 27.Claret 28.Tomato 29. Spice 30. Copper 31. Camel 32. Stone 33. Gold 34. Mocha 35. Lemon 36. Saffron 37. Mustard 38. Citron 39. Spring Green 40. Pistachio 41. Lime 42. Meadow 43. Khaki 44. Teal
I am really, really, really, really loving making this blanket - the simplicity of the squares, the speed of the joining method, but most of all, the colours.....oh the colours are just making my heart skip multiple times a day. It's inspiring, relaxing, energising, soothing - total crochet and colour bliss...
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