Hooky Happiness

Ta dah! My first effort at designing a crochet blanket.

 

This week's Saturday Snapshot is an update on a blog piece I posted in August last year showing a piccie of a Work in Progress for my Younger Daughter. At that point she and her Boyfriend were just about to move to a flat in London, and they wanted a cuddly crochet blanket  big enough to wrap around them both as they sat on the sofa - even though they didn't actually have a sofa at that time!

They wanted something bright and cheerful, in Superman colours, which is not necessarily my usual style, but I was happy to oblige. I decided on granny squares, because they're quick and easy, and I love making them, but I didn't want my usual random effort with a mish-mash of different colours and yarns in random squares or stripes. No, I wanted something clever, with a properly designed pattern, and I had in mind a central panel, of blue and yellow squares, edged in white, surrounded by lots of red (YD's favourite colour) with yellow and blue stripes all around the edge.
 

Work in Progress!

I originally planned one shade of red for the main part of the blanket, but it was very red indeed, and I was afraid it might be too dominant, especially as red is not my favourite colour (but YD loves it, and that's the main thing, because it is her blanket, after all). Anyway, I added a second, slightly darker shade (like a nice dark, red wine) to give a bit of interest, and I really liked the effect. It wasn't my usual palette at all, but I loved working with these colours because they were so cheerful and uplifting. 

 

Woollie wonders... Vibrant colours for a crochet blanket.

The worst bit was trying to fathom out how many different squares I could produce with four colours (two blues and two yellows) for the central panel. However, YD's Boyfriend, who is a real whizz at maths, came to my rescue,  and explained that I would end up with 24 different squares, which really surprised me - I never dreamed that so many variations could be created from just four colours. Apparently it's all to do with something called factorial notation (hope I've got that right), and there's a magical formula for working this kind of thing out. I never knew numbers could be so fascinating - or so useful for arty-crafty stuff!

Thready, steady, go... Stitching in the loose ends.

In the end it turned out that 24 little squares didn't make a big enough panel, so I doubled up and made two of each design. And I was amazingly well organised, and made a chart, listing the colour patterns for each square, and ticked everything off as I went along, so I didn't lose my way and end up with lots of the same block, and none of another! Then, once I'd stitched all the pieces into shape for a rectangular panel, I just kept hooking round and round and round until it was more or less the right size, then made a pretty, loopy, shell-like edging, and ta-dah, it was finished - apart from all the loose ends which had to be stitched in... Hundreds of them... I always promise myself I'll do that as I go along, but I never do, and I always regret it!


Earning my stripes!

It took an awfully long time, and used an awful lot of wool (I wish now I'd kept track of the amount) and there was quite a bit of unpicking and redoing as I went along, and I had no idea how big it should be, so I kept laying it out on the bed - I figured if it covered a double bed it was OK! And, of course, I had other sewing/woolly projects on the go at the same time, so there were periods when I didn't anything on the blanket for quite a while, and sometimes I wondered if it would ever get finished. But eventually I stitched the very last loose end in just a couple of weeks after YD and her Boyfriend bought themselves a bright red sofa, so between us our timing was pretty good.

My blanket (I still think of it as mine) now has pride of place draped over the sofa, and, though I say it myself, it looks absolutely fabulous. And I know self-praise is no recommendation, but I feel very proud of my achievement.



Cosy comfort.... I draped the finished blanket over our sofa, and liked it so much
I was really sorry when I handed it to my Younger Daughter!