A Tale of Five Blankets: Chapter 13

Hello World,

there's one more blanket left in my collection of baby blankets that I've made recently for my shop, and this might even be my favorite one (maybe because it took sooooo  long).

This blanket is made with 324 tiny 2-round granny squares that I've joined together while working the second round. So, 324 squares - that means 648 ends to weave in, plus some for the border. Phew, no wonder it took me so long :)

This blanket was inspired by two other projects, that I had seen years ago, and ever since then I had wanted to make a similar blanket. One is Sandra's Giant Granny Patches on Cherry Heart, the other one is Rajeswari's Giant Granny Patch Blanket on Diaper Mum.

Based on Sandra's and Rajeswari's color palette, I've made some substitutions here and there and added some more, so I finally ended up with 20(!) different colors of Stylecraft Special DK:

Cream

Stone

Mocha

Silver

Saffron

Apricot

Shrimp

Fondant

Lipstick

Claret

Plum

Pale Rose

Clematis

Wisteria

Aster

Cloud Blue

Aspen

Teal

Meadow

Spring Green

Since the blanket already had a good size for a baby blanket, I've only added some more rounds of dc and finished with the border I had already used for my Starlight Baby Blanket.

Although I've mentioned in the beginning, that this was the last baby blanket in my collection, there's still one more blanket to show - one that I made not for sale, but as a gift for my friend's second baby. It's a Baby Sunburst Baby Blanket, and I'm gonna tell you all about it in my next post. :)

Thanks for visiting today and I hope to see you soon back here,

A Tale of Five Blankets: Chapter 11 & 12

Hey there,

I'm back today with a new episode of my Tale of Five Blankets.

Today I want to show you two blankets with a similar color palette.

For the first one (above) I've worked with Stylecraft Special DK in Storm Blue, Duck Egg, Grey, Stone, and Cream. The pattern is Dots'n'Dashes by Darla J. Fanton, that I had already used several times before. I've made this blanket for my shop, and since it sold pretty quickly, I thought I'd make another one with similar, "boyish" colors.

If you're a frequent visitor of my blog, you recognize this pattern (my favorite one) at once: it's the double-ended crochet baby blanket pattern which is available for free on Woman's Day.

On one side I've worked block stripes with the Stylecraft Special DK colors Storm Blue, Duck Egg, and Mocha. For the back side I picked Cream.

Although I usually work with bright rainbow colors, I have to say that I'm pretty pleased with the way these two blankets have turned out :)

Spoiler ahead: if you're a fan of colorful blankets, you shouldn't miss the next chapter... :)

See you then and have a great day,

A Tale of Five Blankets: Chapter 10

Hello there!

Thank you all so much for your interest in my Starlight Baby Blanket that I had introduced in my last post! I'm not quite finished with writing down the pattern yet, but I'm working on it! :)

Meanwhile I can show you another blanket that I've finished recently. It's a c2c (corner-to-corner) graphic blanket with a cute little lion:

I have to admit that I'm very pleased with how it turned out, considering that it was my very first try at c2c-crochet. For the past few years I haven't been following the crochet trends, so c2c was something I had missed completely.

When I discovered some c2c graphghans on Pinterest a while ago, I knew immediately that I had to try this awesome technique! The only problem I had with the available graphic patterns was, that they're not easily adjustable to the size of the blanket you want. Using these patterns, I would have ended up with a much smaller or much bigger blanket than I had planned. But luckily - and that's the nice thing about c2c - it's pretty easy to make your own pattern.

So I just browsed the free cliparts on the internet, found a cute picture of a baby lion, and turned it into a pixel graphic, using the online tool Stitch Fiddle.

This is an amazing tool that allows you to enter the desired number of rows and columns before it transforms your picture into a pixel graphic. Of course there was some fine-tuning and editing necessary, because the original output had like ten different shades of yellow that I had to combine somehow. I also removed some details that looked blurry in the pixel graphic, and adjusted some blocks so that the face and the body of the lion looked symmetrical.

 

For my blanket I used Stylecraft Special DK in Cream, Lemon, Saffron, Spice, Walnut, and Sherbet. The pattern has 44x45 blocks and with the border (some rounds of dc's and a bobble edging) the blanket measures 75x75cm.

I love the endless possibilities that this technique offers and can't wait to make another one (with a different picture of course). This one is for sale now (only in Germany) in my new DaWanda-Shop.

Thanks for visiting today, hope next time I'll be back with the promised Starlight pattern!

A Tale of Five Blankets: Chapter 9

Hello there,

I'm back today with a new episode of my Tale of Five Blankets.

This is a special blanket, because it's the first baby blanket that I've designed myself. It's a star-stitch variation, so I thought "Starlight Baby Blanket" would be a nice name for it.

Before I started with this one, I had already posted a test-swatch on Facebook, that looked like this:

As you can see, I've made a few changes to the original idea: Some of the colors seemed a little bit too strong, so I changed to lighter, softer pastell colors. For the test-swatch I've also worked the star-stitch-rows with colors, and the dc-rows in between with cream. For the final blanket I did it the other way round, and worked the star-stitch-rows in cream and the dc-rows with colors, but basically you could do it either way :) Once again, I've used Stylecraft Special DK in Cream, Lemon, Apricot, Clematis, Sherbet, and Spring Green.

What I really like about this pattern (other than the fact, that it's easy to do), is that the two sides look slightly different, but both of them are beautiful :) The blanket is for sale now in my new Dawanda-Shop (shipping to Germany only).

Hope you like this new blanket as much as I do, if you're interested I could write down the pattern and share it here, just let me know! :)

A Tale of Five Blankets - Chapters 6-8

Hey there,

you're probably confused that the Tale of Five Blankets continues now, although we had already reached the last chapter with Chapter 5. But - just like in real life - sometimes the story continues, even when it seems that you've already written the final chapter, isn't that true?

So, enough with philosophy - meanwhile I've finished several more baby blankets, and instead of coming up with a new creative title every time, I just thought I'd continue this tale, so all my new baby blankets can be found under the same tag. And since I'm hyper-productive right now, I'm gonna show you three new blankets in one post today (with three more still waiting in line *gg*).

Let's start with my favorite one:

For this modern girlie-blanket I've used a great pattern that I had tried once before (click here). It's the Dot'n'Dashes pattern by Darla J. Fanton and it's available for free on Red Heart. The pattern is for three different colors, and since I had been quite pleased with the result of using four colors in my first blanket, I thought this time I'd go with five colors.

As usual, I was working with Stylecraft Special DK and used the following colors: Creme, Grey, Silver, Clematis, and Plum. I really do love this pattern, because it's so easy to do (actually a no-brainer that allows you to watch TV while the blanket is growing almost all by itself), but the result with the interesting structure is just amazing! Definitely under my personal Top 3 of my favorite blanket patterns!

Another favorite pattern - and you know that already if you're a regular reader of my blog - is the double ended crochet pattern (also by Darla J. Fanton) which I used for the next blanket:

The pattern actually creates a stunning two-sided effect, but in this blanket the effect is more subtle, because of the light colors I've worked with. (The effect is better when working with two high contrast colors).

For the front side I've worked with Calista Color by Schachenmayr, a beautiful color gradient yarn, and for the back side I've used white Rico Acryl Soft yarn.

And last but not least, I've made another traditional Granny Square blanket :)

As much a I like this pattern, it's also a sign that I had to frog another blanket, because that's what I usually do: if I have to frog another project that leaves me with bits and pieces, I end up using them for granny squares.

The yarn is Stylecraft again, and the colors are Silver, Cream, Clematis, Sherbet, Spring Green, and Apricot.

All these blankets are for sale now in my brand-new (german) Dawanda-Shop. Yes, that's right - I decided to tackle this adventure, with all the necessary inconveniences: registering an official business, filling out tax forms, setting up professional terms and conditions, getting a packaging license, and so on and so on. Since I'm just getting started, I'm only shipping to Germany right now.

And to make this post complete, let me also mention that I set up a new (german) Facebook-Page Babydecken made in k-town to accompany my shop and - mainly - to make my new business known in the area where I live. But any likes are welcome :) Of course my regular Facebook-Page that runs with this blog is still active, too!

I'll be back here soon with some more blankets, one of them with a free pattern for you! :)

A Tale of Five Blankets - Chapter 5

Welcome to the last (but not final) chapter of my Tale of Five Blankets!

As I've already mentioned in my last post, the last blanket in this series is one that I've made just a few weeks ago.

I've also mentioned earlier, that I've sold most of my yarn on Ebay a while ago. And while the auction was still on, I was shopping with John (yeah, he's still around, too *gg*) and my Mom at a big grocery store and saw this color gradient acrylic yarn and thought right away that this would be perfect for a baby blanket. My Mom liked it, too, but I told her that I definitely won't buy any more yarn, when I've just managed to finally get rid of most of my stash. But of course the yarn kept sitting and nagging in the back of my mind.

So, just a few days later I gave in, drove back to the grocery store, bought four balls with two different color gradients, and started this blanket right away. Four days later it was finished :)

I've used my favorite double-ended crochet pattern again, and the final size is 81 x 71cm. For the border, I've worked a round of sc's, followed by a round of 2dc's in every second sc, followed by a final round of a front-post dc / regular sc combination, that I had already used for the previous blanket in this series.

The yarn for the front side is Calista Color acrylic yarn by Schachenmayr, but either it's a brandnew yarn or completely outdated, because Google hasn't found a single (correct) entry to this! Thank god I've found it at the grocery store!

For the back I've used Stylecraft Special DK in cream, because it's the same quality and yarn-weight as Calista.

So that was it - the fifth chapter of my Tale of Five Blankets. But the whole story isn't told yet...

I'm so glad that I've found my way back to crochet and I'm really back in "the flow" right now. While I was posting these five blankets here, I've managed to

- finish three (!) more baby blankets

- make some cute little easter ornaments

- design a brand-new mandala pattern

- design another brand-new mandala with matching coasters

and

- (accidently) design a new square pattern.

So, there's a lot to look forward to. Just hope I don't lose my mojo again :)

Have a great Sunday,

A Tale of Five Blankets - Chapter 4

Hey girls!

I'm back today with Chapter 4 of my Tale of Five Blankets. Today it's another (classic) Granny Square Blanket.

It's been a while since I've made it, but I think I had seen a picture on Pinterest of a crochet blanket with a grey background and thought I'd like to try this, too.

I really like the way the colors "pop" on this background, don't you?

Once more, I've used the fabulous Stylecraft Special DK acrylic yarn, and although I haven't written down the colors, meanwhile I'm able to recognize them by heart: Clematis, Sherbet, Saffron, Shrimp, Apricot, and Aspen. The tiny squares are framed with one round in Cream, and then joined with the continuous join-as-you-go method in Graphite (okay, I had to look that one up *gg*)

For the border I've used the block stitch pattern again, and finished it off with border no. 120 from Edie Eckman's book "Around The Corner - Crochet Borders", it's a front-post dc/regular sc combination. The final blanket measures 78x78 cm.

I'm also happy to say that this is the first blanket I've actually sold. My sister-in-law wanted something special to give to her friend who recently had her first baby, and this blanket was the one she picked from my pile of the five blankets that I'm showing you in this series.

The first four blankets you've seen now have one thing in common: I've made them all before or during my long blog break. The last one in the series is a brand-new one, that I've made just a few weeks ago. Turned out I still know how to hold a hook and where to place my stitches! :)

See you all next time for the final chapter of my Tale of Five Blankets!