Colourwash Granny Blanket :: Ta-dah!

I have come to realise that over the years I've become pretty addicted to writing and sharing Ta-dah posts here on my blog. I love the feeling of bubbly excitement that rises as I upload the photo-story, and the pure happiness that spreads as I begin to find the words to describe my creative journey. I find it a wonderful and fulfilling way to round off what has often been many months of planning and making, and the whole process makes my heart squeeze.

Compared to my usual blanket-making journeys, this one has been mighty fast. Right from the very beginning when I sat in my studio and spent those hours snipping little bits of yarn and arranging them in rows, I was in love. I knew immediately that the making of this blanket would delivery huge dollops of pleasure  - the very simple granny squares combined with an exciting rush of colour-fix had me bowled over from the very beginning. I have love love loved this journey so much, it was everything I had hoped for, and a whole lot more on top. But oh, it all went by way too fast! One minute I was playing with yarn snippets and the next minute I was spreading out a finished blanket. In reality, this blanket started on 20th May and finished on 1st July which is exactly six weeks, and that fact has surprised me somewhat - I think I must have slipped into a hooky time warp or something.

This blanket came about as I wanted to use some of my rather vast stash of yarn left over from the making of many other blankets over the past couple of years. In total there are 44 different colours of Stylecraft Special DK, which makes me smile every time I think about it. Forty four, fancy that! You may remember I wrote about the start of this blanket back in June (this post), where I explained how I was ordering my colours to create a subtle colourwash effect through the rows. 

I have seriously loved messing around with these colours and watching the blanket grow and transform from cool to hot, then back to cool again. This blanket certainly ticked all my colour-crush boxes and kept me excited and swooning through every single one of the 144 squares.

At the end of May, we took a few days away from home and returned to stay in the rented house in St Annes again. We were blessed with a lovely dash of early summer and enjoyed day after day of glorious sunshiny weather. Of course I had my hooky with me (I don't travel anywhere without my yarn and hook) and spent some really gorgeous hours sat out in the small courtyard garden with a chilled glass of white wine and my blanket to hand. Blissful indeed.

I love that during that sunny time away I was working on row 8, which just happened to be the introduction of the yellow shades - totally appropriate as it happens (yay for sunny seaside holidays!) and I have some delicious memories tucked up in those warm rows.

Onwards through June, and the blanket continued to grow.....

....through the heat of the oranges and yellows....

....and gently down into the cooler shades of green.

The final (twelfth) row merged the greens with the greeny-blues, which took the blanket full circle and back to the same colours that I started with in the first row.

When I first dreamed up the colourwash idea, it was as if I could already see the blanket like a photograph pinned up on the wall of my Creative Mind. It was such an amazing feeling to see this blanket come together in reality, after having such a clear vision before I started making it.

I am normally in a full on dither over the edge of my blankets, and often ponder over it for weeks before deciding what to do. Not this time though, I was straight on with it, yippeee for decisiveness and vision! After making a dinky little linen stitch edging on my cupcake blanket, I had really wanted to try making a much deeper border using the same stitch (inspired by this gorgeous blanket on Pinterest). If you want to try this edging on a granny square blanket it's very straight forward, although the first row is a little bit faffy. If you look in the photo above, you can see that the (dc; ch1's) are worked into every alternate stitch along the edge of the granny squares. However, when you move across the join between two squares, you crochet the dc's into each corner space of the two joining squares. Then it's back to working them into every other stitch. Hope that makes sense!

Linen stitch makes quite a tight crochet fabric, so working a wide border means you need to adjust your hook size to stop the crochet from pulling too tight (ie I changed from a 4mm to a 5mm). 

I can't tell you how much I enjoyed making these neat little rows of colour, it gave me soooooo much pleasure! I worked out the colours in advance (21 of them to make a 10cm wide border), and I think the end result is stunning........

........mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!!!!!!!!!! What a colour-fest!!!!

Here is my colour list for this border ::

♥ 1. Petrol ♥ 2. Aster ♥ 3. Turquoise ♥ 4. Storm Blue ♥ 5. Aspen ♥ 6. Lime ♥ 7. Gold ♥ 8. Spice ♥ 9. Tomato ♥ 10. Copper ♥ 11. Claret ♥ 12. Plum ♥ 13. Raspberry ♥ 14. Pomegranate ♥ 15. Magenta ♥ 16. Violet ♥ 17. Lavender ♥ 18. Wisteria ♥ 19. Parma Violet ♥ 20. Duck Egg ♥ 21. Cloud Blue ♥

I love it very, very much.

I especially like the way that the corner turn is so neat looking, and that this band of colours puts a joyful rainbow around the whole of the blanket.

So I guess you maybe want to see how the squares look with their rainbow frame?

I'll need to lay the blanket out on the attic floor, then run down three flights of stairs to grab the step ladders from the cellar. Then back up three flights of stairs to balance on the steps with my camera.

I'll need to wobble a bit and try and hold the camera steady with one hand held high up above the blanket.

Ok, I'm up the ladder.......

camera at the ready.......

the light is good.......

click

click

click..........

Ta-dah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What a heart-expanding sight, so much beautiful, glorious, bright, happy, harmonious colour!

I love the wide border and the way it works to frame the squares..........

........it's ever so slightly over the top but I love the exuberance of it. I really, really love it so much.

I explained in detail about my method of planning the rows in my previous colourwash blanket post, and I would love to think this might inspire you to gather together your own colours and create your own colour story. Please do let me know if you are making your own colourwash blanket, I would love to see!

As I've already been asked many times on social media about the exact colour placement for making this blanket, I am more than happy to give you all the information you need. As mentioned before, I used 44 shades of Stylecraft Special DK. There are twelve rows, and each row contains 12 squares (6 colours, 2 of each colour placed in each row). I made a table to detail the exact colour placement.......

Row 1	1	2	6	3	5	4	6	1	3	2	5	4
Row 2	9	10	8	1	2	7	10	2	8	7	9	1
Row 3	13	7	14	11	8	11	12	7	11	14	12	8
Row 4	18	17	16	13	15	17	14	18	13	15	16	14
Row 5	15	21	24	18	20	19	15	21	24	19	18	20
Row 6	22	26	19	23	21	26	25	19	22	25	23	21
Row 7	25	28	27	25	30	29	28	26	27	29	30	26
Row 8	29	33	34	28	31	36	33	29	34	31	36	28
Row 9	31	38	37	33	32	35	37	31	38	35	32	33
Row 10	40	39	41	42	37	38	40	39	42	37	41	38
Row 11	6	42	44	43	5	41	44	5	41	6	43	42
Row 12	1	5	2	3	6	4	2	6	1	2	5	3

♥ 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 doing a happy dance in my mind thinking about the pure joy this blanket is giving me and how much I'm looking forward to taking it out and about with us over the summer. I can't wait to see it spread out on the grass somewhere scenic, and on the beach later in the summer when we head up to Northumberland. There is a lot of happiness in those one hundred and forty four squares :)

Before a toddle off, I'll give you a few Blankety Facts and Figures ::

Yarn ♥ Stylecraft Special DK, a stash-busting project to use up left overs. I used 44 colours in total - I'm sorry I can't give you exact quantities of each colour.

Hook ♥ 4mm for the squares, moving up to 5mm for the linen stitch border.

Size ♥ Each granny square is made in 5 rounds and measures 10 cm (I crochet quite tightly with a 4mm hook). The border width is also 10cm. The blanket measures 140cm / 4.5 ft square.

Pattern ♥ Basic Granny Square pattern can be found in my previous colourwash blanket post here (scroll down near the bottom). I used the join-as-you-go method for joining the squares during the final (5th) round of each granny square, you can find a tutorial for this technique here. The Linen Stitch border pattern can be found here (although please see info up above re working the first row along the edge of granny squares)

Blanket ♥ Scrumptious in every way.

Me ♥ Swooning. I'm such a hopeless colour addict.

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Comments

[Lynda M Otvos]

Gorgeous, Lucy.
Each of your blankets displays its own personality. Loads in this gem.
Thanks for sharing your pattern, tips, experience and love for the craft of crochet. It’s my favorite craft too.

[Maureen Carter]

Beautiful and full of JOY as usual!

[Hazie]

Wow! This is totally gorgeous Lucy. Thank you for sharing.

[Joan]

Hi Lucy,I know I'm a bit late to the party so to speak,but just wanted to say how much I adore this blanket...loved the fact that you can do a few squares & yeah!!! I've mastered join as you go, thanks to you. I'm now on the gorgeous border. Thank you so much lovely Lucy for your clear picture tutorials,you are truly amazing 💐🌻🌸🌺🌼🌾🌷🌹 X

[Gina]

Hi Lucy I am enjoying making this blanket - it is so colourful! A small question - the squares have 2 chains at each corner - when you join the squares by the join-as-you-go method do you do a joining slip stitch FOLLOWED BY a chain stitch? I would greatly appreciate a reply if you have time. Warm wishes Gina

[Lynne]

Dear Lucy

Many thanks for a lovely blanket. I have gone through my stash upstairs and have only had to order seven colours from Woolwarehouse - which is good. I made your harmony blanket which is currently on my youngest bed and she has the blanket over her every nightx

I am sorry that are some negative comments on this page but some people are just like that.

I love everything that you post.

Lynnexx

[Carol Ward]

Truly inspiring, love your colours. . can't wait to get started. Thank you

[Linda]

What a wonderfull blog , thank you for sharing

[anita zeeman]

Wauw so beautiful, thanks for your blog i love it

[Ana-Marie Cortez-Meza]

You never disappoint with your colour choices!
Love it!
Curious, how long it took you to complete it?

[Lynn]

Love it - the colours are fantastic!

[Leah]

I can't take my eyes of your gorgeous border! I can't wait to try it on my next blanket. It is just stunning Lucy. As always, thank you for the inspiration.

Leah

[Helen]

That is beautiful and the border finishes the blanket off perfectly.

[bloepper]

i always enjoy your ta-dah posts. this one is a real beauty - love the pixelled look of it. and a most excellent border. thank you for hooking away. one day, i really will crochet myself a blanket too.

[Miriam]

wauw!

[Anne]

LOVE the blanket! Esp. the border - I made one like this for my Cozy Stripes Blanket (http://crochetbetweentwoworlds.blogspot.de/2016/04/ta-dah-cozy-stripes-rainbow-blanket.html) and I just loved how it worked up!

This blanket will certainly make it onto my to do list. :) Thank you for sharing the pattern!!

Take care
Anne
Crochet Between Worlds

[Carine]

Thank you to enjoy my day with your choice of colors. So Nice!

[Denise Humphrey]

I am also a hopeless color addict, and love all your work. Thanks for all you do.

[Joy]

Beautiful as always Lucy and what a great way to use up your stash xx Love Joy xx

[Ros]

Gorgeous and I just love the edging - it's beautiful in itself but as an edging to your blanket, it brings the whole thing to life.

[Tammy Davis]

Oh... It is just breathtaking. I think the linen stitch would make a beautiful blanket, too. The border is out of this world. Thanks for sharing your talent!

[Mary Yoshida]

Smiling and feeling much Happiness, Thank-you ^..^ ^..^

[melissa]

Its beautiful, no doubt, as all your blankets are. But to me, it just looks like all the others. I don't really see a big difference, they all look the same.

[Sierra]

I love the blanket but I think the border is what really makes! I adore your blankets!

[Beth in Maryland]

Lucy, you've outdone yourself this time! It's very Mondrian. (I believe I mean Momdrian. :))

So glad you are back.