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SPRING PASTELS BLANKET

Hello and thanks for visiting! I have been inspired to start this blog by all the lovely people who have followed the progress of my most recent crochet project, which I have decided to call my Spring Pastels Blanket. I shared updates of the making process on Instagram and I was overwhelmed by how many people engaged with it, left feedback, asked questions and expressed an interest in making the blanket themselves. I was not expecting such a response so it was a lovely surprise! I have found that it can be difficult to keep up with responding to individual requests for information on Instagram, although I have tried, some things just get lost in the fast moving feed. So, here I am, writing my first blog, with hopefully all the information you will need if you would like to make this blanket yourself. 

The blanket is 62"x 62" in size and is made up of 49 individual granny squares. If you are a beginner or are unsure of the granny square pattern, I have written a step by step tutorial with lots of photos, which you can find HERE. This is the first time I have written a tutorial, so I hope I have managed to make it clear and understandable! I am happy to answer questions in the comments section if you have any.

Each granny square is made up of nine different colours. I used a 4mm crochet hook and the yarn is Stylecraft Special DK in the following shades:

Round 1 Spring Green

Round 2 Apricot

Round 3 Sherbert

Round 4 Clematis 

Round 5 Lemon

Round 6 Wisteria

Round 7 Candyfloss

Round 8 Aspen

Round 9 Cream

 

If you follow me on Instagram, you will know that I like to make my grannies using a round by round production line, meaning, for 49 of these granny squares I first hooked up 49 first rounds in spring green...

Then added 49 second rounds in apricot...

49 third rounds in Sherbert...

And then continued working this way (for quite some time!) until I eventually ended up with a big satisfying pile of 49 completed granny squares.

I guess everyone develops their own favourite methods of working and I personally prefer this method. I find it efficient and I love how you are able to see the blanket grow as a whole, from the first round to the last. 

Now, the ENDS. In a project like this, with many squares and several different colours, there are SO. MANY. ENDS!!!

How to tackle the ends is entirely up to you. I personally like to sew in all my ends as I'm going along. As soon as I've tied off at the end of each round I will sew the end in straight away. This can get annoying as it slows down the process of completing the squares...but...it's also so satisfying when you have finished all the squares and you don't have a million ends to sew in. Some people do prefer to leave the ends until later and then deal with them all in one go, which is obviously fine as well!

JOINING

Once all the squares are complete and the ends dealt with, the next task is joining. I like to try out different methods of joining and for this project I chose to stitch them together using the invisible stitch method, also known as the reverse mattress stitch. I wanted to try this stitch as I like how it joins the grannies together flatly, with no prominent ridge at either side. Now I have tried this method, I am happy with how it looks on my blanket, it's nice and neat both front and back. However, I found it very time consuming and about half way through I started to wish I had chosen to join them using a crochet slip stitch instead, which I find to be a much quicker method and in my opinion it doesn't look that much different. 

If you would like to use the invisible stitch method to join your granny squares, the tutorial I used is available as a free Ravelry download, which you can find HERE.

BORDER

The border is the one part of my crochet projects that I generally don't plan in advance. I always want to see the blanket made up first and then choose a border to fit. I had a few border ideas for this blanket but in the end I decided to keep it simple and just continue working around it using the basic granny square pattern. I started by adding 3 rows of cream, then I followed the same colour plan as I used in the individual granny squares, ending up with a border of 12 rows in total.

 

Sooo I *think* I've covered everything in relation to the making process of this blanket. I loved working on this and I'm super happy with how it's turned out, and of course I'm so grateful to all the people who joined me over on Instagram and left so many kind and supportive comments while I was working on this. Thank you!!

I look forward to sharing my next crochet project with you!

Laura xx

 

 

Comments

[Océane]

Hi ! Your blanket is amazing and it's so inspiring. Thank you so much for sharing the process with your followers (with me !).
I was wondering : how many ball of wool did you use for each color ? I hope someday I will find the time to do something like this but I have absolutely no idea of how many meter of wool I will have to buy.
Thank you !!
Océane

[Blossom & Daisy Crochet]

Hi there! Thanks for your lovely comments. For a blanket this size it will take between one and two 100g balls of DK yarn in each colour, and between 2 and 3 100g balls in the cream xx