After quite a few people commented on the pictures I posted
on Facebook, I decided to share the story (including the pattern, which I made
up – it’s very simple!) of The Yellow Blanket. I refer to it as though it were
the title of a book, because there’s something about the journey of making a
blanket that feels like writing a book. Not that I’ve done so. Yet.
The first blanket I made, during lockdown, was The Green Blanket
– for my daughter. This one was for my son. I felt like working with blue, but
when I gave him the choice, he chose the colours of a crest of one of the Harry
Potter houses. The colours (yarn) I managed to find, that came closest to his
choice were yellow, grey, black and white. I drew my little design on paper, bought
the yarn and started. I started on 9 June and ended on 13 August. I could get really
Virgoey and explain that there was a period when I stopped, because I’d run out
of yellow, but that’s neither here nor there – the blanket took about 2 and a
half months to complete, and the end result was really beautiful.
I have to say that I absolutely love making a blanket for
someone. I love giving them the choice of colours and I love creating the
blanket from that first bit to the very end, when I do the border.
I am a novice, when it comes to crocheting: the entire
blanket uses two types of stitches – single crochet and double crochet. I’m
putting the pattern down in my own way, and I hope it makes sense to you.
Basically, if I can make a blanket, anyone can. I took pics throughout the
process, so I’ll include them as well.
STEP ONE: I started with a chain of 272 stitches. This is
for a double bed, but it doesn’t hang far down the sides. You could do a longer
chain, if you want a wider blanket. Be careful not to work too tightly, because
you need to crochet into each chain stitch for your first row.
I always start with a chain as long as the width of the blanket.
STEP TWO: ROW 1: Once you’ve got your chain of 272 stiches,
do one row of double crochet stitch, placing one stitch into each chain stitch.
The end result will look like a long curly ladder, or a DNA strand. 😊
Row one - when it really starts.
STEP THREE: ROW 2:
two double crochet stitches into the first space, miss a space, then two double
crochet stitches into every second space.
This is the equivalent pic of the green blanket. I hope you can see the first row and then the second row which has two stitches into one space.
STEP FOUR: ROW 3 (and every row, for the rest of the
blanket): two double crochet stitches
into each space between the pairs of two stitches.
I love watching how the colours start to form what will eventually be a repeated sequence.
I will talk about the border later, but here’s something
about the yarn I used. I bought Charity double knit in four colours: Banana (a
pale yellow), School Grey, Black and White. I used about 24/25 balls.
For my son’s blanket, this was the way I worked the four colours:
Six rows Grey, two rows Black, six rows Banana and two rows White.
I prefer to have all the joins on one edge, so that when I tuck them in later, I need to work on just one edge, and not two.
STEP FIVE:
BORDER
For this
blanket, I did three rows to make the border:
Before
starting with the first row, I tucked in all the loose bits (where I joined
colours), using a darning needle and sometimes the crochet hook. I work the loose bits neatly along the long
edge of the blanket, so that when I do the border, I crochet everything into
the border.
Row 1: Using
Black yarn, I did one row of single crochet, all around the blanket.
Row 2: Still
using Black, I did one row of double crochet, all around the blanket.
Row 3: I
decided to be a little quirky and do the final row in Banana – just because. For
this row, I found a Youtube tutorial on how to make the shell/scalloped border stitch, and
that’s what I did. This is how it goes: One single crochet stitch. Skip two
spaces and do five double crochet stitches into the third space. Skip
two spaces and do one single crochet stitch. And keep going, all around the
blanket.
And that’s
it.
I have a little ritual, when I make blankets: the night that I complete
the blanket, which I’ve been working on for weeks and weeks (and being covered
by while working), I sleep under it, as a sort of goodbye. The next
day, I wash it in the washing machine, make sure it gets lots of fabric
softener so that it smells nice, then I hang it on the line to dry.
I hope you
get as much joy out of the process as I do. There is something really calming
and quite magical about crocheting. If you’re reading this and thinking, “Yup – she’s crazy!”, then I assume you won’t be trying to make one
yourself.
What’s next
for me? I’m working on three beanies (knitting), then it’s one blanket for the
tiniest person in our family (7 months old) and then an adult’s blanket ordered
by a friend. Hmmmm, I wonder what colours she’ll choose.
Happy me!
