Raspberry ripple blanket

Half-way through February and I've just remembered that I'm due a blog! It's another blanket one I'm afraid.

I am all about the blankets.

In 2012 I made my nephew a Spiderman inspired giant granny square blanket for his bed. You might remember it, it's this one here. Well, last year my sister asked me to make a blanket for my five year old niece, as she was having her bedroom decorated. My sister picked out the colours from my own giant granny square blanket to fit in with the colour scheme - she went for a pale pink called 'Fondant', a lovely soft 'Plum' and 'Cream'. They're Stylecraft Special DK yarns, which is my favourite yarn for blankets as it's soft, cheap and easy to work with. I'd previously found a pattern by Lucy of Attic 24 for a lovely ripple blanket which I'd been dying to try out for a while. So, full of enthusiasm off I went, thinking this should be a lot quicker as it was only single bed sized, rather than the double bed style of the previous two blankets.

I got through the first few colour changes quite quickly...

I loved the colours and the ripple effect. It's a really easy pattern, basically just lots of treble crochets (UK terminology), along with increases and decreases.

I hate those bamboo hooks (from the first pic), much happier with a metal hook in hand

And then, somewhere around a quarter of the way into the project I completely stalled. I was sooooooo bored of the ripples. I think the fact that I was doing seven rows of each colour was what did it - as there were much fewer short term goals. With my original blanket I'd work until I finished a colour, but with this I didn't even want to pick it up, as the colour change was so far away.

Eventually I got to about halfway through - but by now it was late July and the present needed to be ready for Christmas (I'd already missed the May birthday deadline) - so I had to get cracking!

 This is probably the best photo for the colour of the plum

I think one of the main difficulties I experienced with this project was the closeness of the stitches. With a granny square you're making as much progress in the spaces between stitches as you are with the stitches themselves. With this everything was stitches.  

E V E R Y T H I N G.

 

I do rather like the colours though, several people commented on how it looked like ice-cream...

 ...the general consensus was that it looks like neapolitan ice-cream...

...although I suspect that's because of the way the plum colour comes out very dark in photos...

I prefer to think of it as my raspberry ripple blanket

This photo makes my eyes go funny, it's like a Magic Eye puzzle

I decided against doing a border for this blanket because the edges were all neat enough, and so it didn't seem to need one. Also my niece's taste is quite girlie but not particularly fancy, so she wouldn't want any additional frills. I think the plum makes it quite a sophisticated colour scheme for a 5 year old!

It was difficult to get a decent photo of the ripples at the top and bottom of the blanket. I always struggle with photographing the finished item in a way which shows it off properly. The top and bottom edges are a lot more regimented than the picture below makes them appear because, as my friend @CrochetedZombie would say, I'm a tight hooker!

(It's being modelled on a king-sized bed here btw, I didn't seriously misjudge the size of the blanket)

So I finally got a wiggle on and actually finished it in November, leaving me with time to do those snowflakes from the last blog. Yes, I am a crochet addict. I finished this blanket with a claw-like, aching hook-hand, and launched straight into making 60-odd snowflakes.

I gave it to my niece for Christmas and she loved it, so I was very pleased. :)

BOO-YA BLANKET!

Being a glutton for punishment, I'm actually in the midst of another blanket, which I started in late December. This one is a surprise though, so it's top secret! Well, except on Twitter anyway, where I keep posting excitable pictures. I can't wait to properly show you that one.

See you in March then... x