I’m a huge fan of blankets – you can never have too many! When my husband and I got married 3 years ago one of our friends made us a beautiful patchwork knitted blanket and it is one of my favourite gifts. So when two of our closest friends (who are two of Pip’s godparents) got engaged last year I began to think about maybe making them a wedding present.
Of course I didn’t actually get my butt in gear until this summer when it dawned on me I should get a wriggle on!
After suggesting it to the bride and groom who were very excited about it, I decided to do it in shades of blue – blue being the bride’s favourite colour and also quite fitting as ‘something blue’ for the wedding!
I’m a long time user of Stylecraft DK – its easy to work with, has a great range of colours and is very affordable – which when you’re making a huge blanket is important! I decided to use the seven Stylecraft blues: Aster, Cloud Blue, Sherbert, Midnight, Royal, Denim and Turquoise.
Having decided on a colour scheme the next part was deciding on a block motif to use. Jan Eaton’s 200 Crochet Blocks book is an amazing read and source of inspiration. The one that really stuck out for me is the Willow Block. In the book its multicoloured but I opted for a solid colour, and set about making the blocks in the seven colours.
The pattern is easy to use, though I would have quite liked a diagram version in the book. It is quite an intricate block though, and even with lots of practice it still took about half an hour to make each square! At some point it dawned on me that I’d need to add another block which was simpler and quicker if I was going to get this finished in time. The Lacy Cross block (again from Jan Eaton’s book) was the perfect choice – simple, but that provided a good contrast with the delicate willow squares.
So I didn’t go completely crazy I split the blanket into quarters and once I had 35 squares I would join them, which provided a nice change and also helped me visualise what the end blanket would look like. To join them I put the blocks wrong sides facing and joined with single crochet in white.
140 squares later (14×10) and 4 months later, I have finally finished this blanket! Once all the squares were joined I added a simple border of white HDC, grey DC, white HDC and then a HDC round in bright yellow (Stylecraft DK Sunshine). Yellow is the groom’s favourite colour and together with blue and grey it is the colour scheme of their Scottish wedding. The thin yellow band around the outside adds a great pop of colour – I love it! And I managed to finish with 3 weeks to spare! Fingers crossed the future Mr & Mrs Miles love it as much as I do 🙂
With the border the blanket measures 74″x52″ (using a 3.5mm hook)
hollypips 