Happy Rainbow Squares Blanket

With all this grey weather we’ve been having in London lately I’ve been itching for some colour….so on a whim I started a new baby blanket.  After raiding my Stylecraft Special DK stash I decided on a a rainbow of colours! Lipstick, Shrimp, Sunshine, Aspen, Cloud Blue, Turquoise and Magenta.



To make the most of these bright shades I opted for solid granny squares.  Just three rounds big and with no colour change these were so quick and easy to make! If you haven’t made a solid granny square before there’s a great tutorial over on Little Tin Bird.

As this is only a baby blanket (perfect size for a moses basket or car seat) it only needed 49 squares (7×7), meaning 7 of each colour.  



These are honestly so quick that it only took a couple of days to make the squares. To make the colours pop I decided on cream as a joining colour, and by using the flat slip stitch join technique I got a nice, neat finish.  The trickiest bit was probably deciding on what border to put on it.



I bought this book a while ago after seeing it recommended on Instagram- ‘Around the Corner – Crochet Borders’ by Edie Eckman.  It’s got a lot of variety but I would say I found most of them a bit fussy for my taste. But I persevered and found one in there I liked (#20 if you’re interested!)

This has been a really quick, fun blanket to make – 4 days in total! With the border included it measures 23″ square (using a 4mm hook).  And here it is…..tada!





Christmas Crochet Wishlist

My brother told me recently that he went into a yarn shop and asked them what he could get his sister for her birthday as he wanted to get me something crochet related. They basically told him if she has hooks and yarn then there’s nothing else you really need for crochet! Bless him, he got me some sewing bits and pieces instead, but it got me thinking about what gifts you could get for keen crocheters.

The first thing that springs to mind is a magazine subscription – I love getting a magazine through the post each month and they are an endless source of inspiration. My current favourites are Simply Crochet (which I think has a more fun slant on crochet) and Inside Crochet (which is a bit more serious and features more clothing item patterns). A relatively new magazine is #Crochet – it’s quarterly but packed full of fun things to make.

Carrying on with the idea of inspiration, there are some fantastic crochet books out there. I’ve put together this collage of my favourites!

So what about hooks? The basic aluminium ones are fine, but if you’re working on a big project it’s nice to have a really comfy hook. I’m a big fan of the Clover hooks and have them in mid-range sizes from 4-6mm. I’ll probably expand my collection over time but these are the sizes I mainly use. I stumbled upon these Cornerstone Crochet Lite Illuminated hooks the other day…

I’ve not tried them but they look fun! I’m not sure I would crochet in the dark just using this but they do say it helps when using dark coloured yarns…and at £5.99 they make a fun little stocking filler!

I’ve also seen a few people on Instagram using these pretty Brittany birch crochet hooks:

They look beautiful! I don’t know what they’re like to work with but I’m quite keen to find out!

Another wishlist suggestion, and I’ve been dying to play with one of these for ages, is a yarn winder! I’m pretty sure if I suggest one of these to my husband he’ll jump at the chance to get out of being the one that sits there with his arms out holding skeins of yarn while I manually wind a ball! A quick search on Amazon suggest this one has good reviews but I’d love to hear from people who’ve tried it or who have alternative suggestions!

And finally what about the ultimate crochet christmas present – well for me it would have to be a yarn bowl. If you haven’t already seen Earth, Wool, Fire’s creations on Etsy you definitely need to have a look! I know you can use a colinder to stop your yarn rolling all over the floor but these are just amazing! Here are a couple of pics (not mine – they are Earth, Wool, Fire’s)

So what’s on your crochet christmas wish list? I’m sure there’s some brilliant items out there I haven’t heard of, and I’d love to hear everyone’s suggestions – especially as my husband is yet to organise my christmas present!!

V-stitch LoVe

After seeing all the amazing V-stitch blankets on Instagram, I finally caved and made one of my own. A big inspiration was the Patchwork Heart and she’s got a guide to the stitch on her site – my blanket used a foundation chain of 132 and turned out the perfect size for a pram blanket (or todder size if you have a rather petite child like me!).

I also thought it would be a good opportunity to try out the Caron Simply Soft yarn I’d been hearing about lately and I wasn’t disappointed. It’s acrylic but unbelievably soft and I’m a fan of the large ball size (170g). I love jewel colours so I picked: Grape, Blue Mint, Passion, Fuschia and Berry Blue.

V-stitch is so easy once the first row is completed and works up incredibly quickly. I took it to Cornwall and it was the perfect holiday project.

The whole thing was completed in a couple of weeks (probably because it was so addictive), and I finished it with a border of SC in Grape, followed by a HDC round in Blue Mint.

I haven’t decided yet whether to keep it (tempting but running out of space), gift it or sell it, so it’ll just have to sit looking pretty for a while.