It's the last day of February today, almost nine weeks of twenty-twenty five done and dusted and in the rear view mirror already. And for eight of these wonderful fresh new winter weeks we've been journeying along with the Canalboat blanket CAL and it has honestly been utterly glorious. Oh, I've loved it SO MUCH!! These crochet-along weeks give me so much happiness; the bright, uplifting colours, the daily creativity and sense of purpose, the therapeutic hours with yarn in my hands, and of course enjoying our vibrant online crochet community which absolutely shines during the CAL weeks. I really hope you've enjoyed it as much as I have, and that this final leg of the journey will float your boat :)
I thought it would be fun to remind ourselves of the inspiration behind our stripes and drink in all this boaty, folksy, floral colour one last time. I know I've not grown tired of these colours at all - yes they are a LOT and some of those stripy colour combos have been quite the shocker (!) but the overall vibrancy has been such a tonic through these grey winter weeks. I've heard so many of you say how much you've enjoyed the colour therapy of this blanket and how much it has cheered you up, so I guess I've done my job well.
And of course, at the end of all that feel-good therapy we have a wonderful blanket to keep us warm and snuggly, oh-my, I do so love love love love love making blankets!! I'm still obsessed with designing and making them even after all these years. The Canalboat blanket is a really fun addition to the Attic household and I'm enjoying the vibrant energy it brings to the furniture. I'm delighted I get to live with it forever as I never part with my blankets at all, they are part of the family and get to stick around and be loved on constantly.
Anyhow, enough of all that smooching, I've got important information to give you and a brilliant TA-DAH moment to share with you.
So week 7 of the CAL, and I hope that you've managed to darn in your ends and are ready for The Border.
It's a good idea to weigh your yarn before starting your border so that you can relax and feel confident you won't be playing yarn chicken. The small portable scales I have are excellent and I can highly recommend them ((find them HERE on Amazon)) but ordinary digital kitchen scales will work too. After I'd completed my stripes I had 35-40g of each colour left, just to give you an idea.
I chose the following 8 colours (SSDK/Merino) for my border :
1. Green / Clover
2. Royal / Royal Blue
3. Lime / Olive Green
4. Fondant / Fondant Pink
5. Lipstick / Crimson
6. Gold / Antique Gold
7. Teal / Teal
8. Turquoise / Light Turquoise
Of course you can use whatever colours you prefer, so do feel free to have a play and change them if you wish. The final colour (Turquoise for me) is especially important, so choose your absolute favourite for the final round, it doesn't have to be Turquoise. I'll give you an idea of yarn quantities needed towards the end of this post for reference (all info is also included in the tutorial).
The Canalboat border starts off with some easy rounds of double crochet.
Then we add little groups of pink stitches.....
....and a bold spike stitch round to create a whole run of little pink hearts!!!
Awwwwwww, I could not love this more!!!! ♥♥♥
After two more rounds of dc, the border could be called finished, and some of you might prefer this very neat, straight edge.
For me though, I always knew that the final edging would be a scallopy shell, because I felt it would beautifully echo the shells that make up the Canalboat stripe. I chose Turquoise and absolutely LOVE the way it turned out, but as I mentioned earlier, you can pick whatever colour you like to finish off your blanket. Shall we take a better look????
Ooooooo, isn't it ♥PrEttY♥???? I loved making it so, so much, and I think it's the perfect folksy finish for this bold and playful blanket.
Ok, lets have a proper ta-dah moment shall we?
TA-DAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
What do you think, isn't it a JOY????
I showed it to my friend Christine, and she said it reminded her of eastern European folk ribbons, the woven sort that get stitched onto fabric (see here for some examples). It was exactly the look I had in mind, and I was honestly delighted that she said that!
I really hope you like the border, I admit I do feel a certain pressure to always come up with something new and wonderful that does the blanket justice. The Canalboat blanket is my 24th design using Styelcraft Special DK (24!!!) and each blanket has it's own unique border. They are generally very versatile and interchangeable so hopefully there will always be a border design you can use for any blanket you crochet.
I've made a full photo tutorial to help you along with the Canalboat border and you can find it listed in my sidebar as "Canalboat Border". There is also a printable PDF pattern that you can download/print as well.
For both the tutorial and the printed pattern, click on the link below >>
CANALBOAT BORDER PATTERN AND TUTORIAL
YARN QUANTITIES
If your blanket has come out measuring the suggested 120 x 170 cm, you should easily have enough yarn left over to create the border. I had 35-40g of each colour left once the stripes were complete. I would suggest you weigh your yarn balls if possible, and down below I've given the approximate quantities I used for each round :
The border is made using 8 rounds. Yarn quantities given below are approximate, and based on a blanket measuring 120 x 170cm and using Stylecraft Special DK yarn.
Round 1 : dc round, crocheting into the stripes (16g)
Rounds 2 & 3 : dc rounds (16g)
Round 4 : the mini hearts (16g)
Round 5 - the spike stitch round (26g)
Rounds 6 & 7: dc rounds (16g)
Round 8 : the shell edging (26g)
♥ If you've used Yarnsmiths Merino DK for your blanket, it should measure a smaller 100 x 150cm and you should have enough yarn left to carry you around this size of blanket.
♥ If you've made the Colourwash version of the blanket, this border will work beautifully with those stripes as I designed it with both versions in mind.
I really hope you enjoy this final stage in our blanket journey, it's such a wonderful feeling when you complete a blanket that has kept you company over many weeks/months. Please do keep sharing your photos on social media and share your ta-dah moments with us all - I'd love to put a final blog post together to celebrate our CAL community. I do also plan to take my own blanket down to the canal towpath to take some in-the-wild photos of it :)
Thank you from the bottom of my heart for keeping me company over the past eight weeks, I have enjoyed this crochet-along very, very much.
Thank you, thank you xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
PS> I wanted to mention that I know there are many of you taking your time and walking a slow stroll along the canal path, and also some of you who have not yet even started. That's OK!!! All patterns will remain free and accessible on my blog for you to dip into whenever you wish into the future.
In my sidebar, I created a special page called "Canalboat Blanket CAL" and this is where you can easily find all links in one place. You can then find each CAL instalment (which contains the stripe colours and weekly worksheets) without having to trawl through my archives looking for them. The link is below xx xx
♥ CANALBOAT BORDER TUTORIAL (with photos)
♥ Canalboat TUTORIAL (with lots of photos)
♥ CAL post Part 1 (stripes 1-33)
♥ CAL post Part 2 (stripes 34-65)
♥ CAL post Part 3 (stripes 66-97)
♥ CAL post Part 4 (stripes 98-129)
♥ CAL post Part 5 (stripes 130-161)
♥ CAL post Part 6 (stripes 162-180)